[Bug 407862] Re: Messages not being sent to system logs

[Barry Warsaw]

On Sep 07, 2011, at 09:43 PM, Nikolaus Rath wrote:

>On 09/07/2011 02:16 PM, Barry Warsaw wrote:
>> At this point, what is the ownership and permissions on /var/log/syslog? 
>
># ls -l /var/log/syslog
>-rw-rw-r-- 1 root adm 0 2011-09-07 10:11 /var/log/syslog

So the core problem here is that after logrotate, your /var/log/syslog is
owned by root instead of syslog.

>I've attached my logrotate.conf in case it matters.

Actually, it does!  I'm sorry, I should have asked for a copy of that a long
time ago. :/   FWIW, I can reproduce the problem with your logrotate.conf
file.

Take a look at line 18:

-----snip snip-----
create 664 root adm
-----snip snip-----

>From the manpage:

       create mode owner group
              Immediately  after  rotation  (before  the postrotate script is
              run) the log file is created (with the same  name  as  the  log
              file  just  rotated).  mode specifies the mode for the log file
              in octal (the same as chmod(2)), owner specifies the user  name
              who  will  own  the log file, and group specifies the group the
              log file will belong to. Any of the log file attributes may  be
              omitted,  in  which case those attributes for the new file will
              use the same values as the original log file  for  the  omitted
              attributes.  This  option  can  be  disabled using the nocreate
              option.

So, you're forcing all the new log files to be owned by root:adm, which breaks
rsyslogd.  I'll bet that changing that line to just `create` will fix  your
problem.

Now, here's a question: did you modify that line yourself, or did that come
with the package?  My Lucid system just has `create` on a line by itself, so
I'm guessing you added that.  If not, then is this machine updated from an
earlier version of Ubuntu?  I think rsyslog 4.2.0-2ubuntu8.1 (which is what I
also have on my Lucid system) does not have that line in it.

In any case, I'm going to mark this bug as invalid, because I think we've
narrowed it down enough to know it's not a bug in rsyslog.  Depending on your
response, we might need to open a new bug on logrotate.

Thanks so much for the excellent feedback!


** Changed in: rsyslog (Ubuntu)
       Status: Confirmed => Invalid

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/407862

Title:
  Messages not being sent to system logs

Status in Rsyslog:
  Fix Released
Status in “rsyslog” package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid

Bug description:
  First reported on Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha3
  It affects Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Final Release, too.

  rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="4.2.0" x-pid="2296"
  x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] rsyslogd was HUPed, type
  'lightweight'.

  After the above message in syslog no more messages are sent to any
  system logs. Plugging and unplugging an usb device produce no
  messages, although the device is mounted an works fine. Also, nothing
  is produced by the logger command.

  The problem occurs in a desktop and in a VirtualBox virtual machine.
  It occurred soon after karmic alpha 3 installation and persisted after
  installing all available updates in both environments.

  I'm attaching a typical syslog.

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