I have a Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 system (update 8, fully patched) with the stock sendmail RPM installed. I cannot convince sendmail to log to /var/log/maillog. Instead, it insists on logging to /var/log/messages. The /etc/syslog.conf file is completely stock and includes these default directives:

*.info;mail.none;authpriv.none;cron.none /var/log/messages
mail.* /var/log/maillog

No amount of restarting/reinstalling sendmail and ksyslogd have made a difference. I opened a case with Redhat support but after a week of sending them configs and sysreports, they've been silent. I suspect there's a bug in the syslog daemon somewhere. If you've got any ideas, I'd be glad to hear them. Thanks!

- ZJ

Although neither are truly the latest, I have 2 systems on Slackware that work. I hadn't noticed until today the "-" sign before the /path/file name on the newer config. I see yours doesn't have that. Just throwing this out there. And sendmail.cf loglevel is set to 9. (Yes, it gets huge.)

Recent Kernel, default:
.info;*.!warn;\
authpriv.none;cron.none;mail.none;news.none -/var/log/messages
mail.* -/var/log/maillog


Older Kernel, custom:
*.=info;*.=notice;daemon.none;mail.none /usr/adm/messages
mail.* /usr/adm/mail.log

Yeah, I knew about the missing dash. According to the docs, the dash just tells syslog not to "sync" after logging. Not sure what that means, but I added the dash and restarted syslog to no effect. Thanks all the same.