On Thu, 18.07.13 11:11, Matthew Miller (mat...@fedoraproject.org) wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 02:19:30PM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> > So, you suggest using "Requires: /var/log/messages" and "Provides:
> > /var/log/messages" as indication for this, and the %ghost
> > /var/log/messages in the packages in question?
> > Sounds good to me! Matthew?
> 
> My main concern with this is that it's a lie. That file only exists because
> of the default configuration. In many cases, rsyslog will be configured to
> either write different files, or most likely, to write no local files at all
> as all data is forwarded. And, as discussed in another subthread, I expect
> this last configuration to be more and more common. So, not just a lie, but
> a lie which may actually make it harder to use rsyslog in ways other than
> the default.
> 
> In an ideal view, it makes most sense to provide the rsyslog default
> configuration in a subpackage which puts the /var/log/messages and
> /var/log/secure conf files in /etc/rsyslog.d -- then, this subpackage would
> provide those files. Unfortunately, in order to preserve behavior on
> upgrade, the main package would have to depend on this, kind of making the
> distinction moot.

Well, I am not sure it's really a "lie". It's reasonably close to the
truth, and it would be agood thing anyway if the syslog implementation
would own /var/log/messages at least as %ghost. I mean, people can
always reconfigure things, and muck around with how things are set up
and break stuff. That's OK, people should be able to do that. 

I think this should really be considered a documentation problem: in the
default rsyslog.conf ship a few comments explaining that
/var/log/messages is kinda considered API by some other packages, and
that the user should only alter its configuration if he knows what he
does.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc.
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