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| author | Michael Biebl <biebl@debian.org> | 2008-03-29 12:14:24 +0100 |
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| committer | Michael Biebl <biebl@debian.org> | 2008-03-29 12:14:24 +0100 |
| commit | ea79ad8dae160f0d0966b5a02fa3b73f0c3d1940 (patch) | |
| tree | 564de6e12a302f99754c7c8490b6dccd1292e70f /doc/history.html | |
| download | rsyslog-ea79ad8dae160f0d0966b5a02fa3b73f0c3d1940.tar.gz | |
Imported Upstream version 1.18.2upstream/1.18.2
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/history.html')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/history.html | 94 |
1 files changed, 94 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/history.html b/doc/history.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..48a6489 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/history.html @@ -0,0 +1,94 @@ +<html> +<head> +<title>rsyslog history</title> +</head> +<body> +<h1>RSyslog - History</h1> + +<b>Rsyslog is a GPL-ed, enhanced syslogd. Among others, it offers support for +reliable syslog over TCP, writing to +MySQL databases and fully configurable output formats (including great timestamps).</b> +Rsyslog was initiated by <a href="http://www.gerhards.net/rainer">Rainer Gerhards</a>. +If you are interested to learn why Rainer initiated the project, you +may want to read his blog posting on "<a href="http://rgerhards.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-does-world-need-another-syslogd.html">why +the world neeeds another syslogd</a>".<p>Rsyslog has +been forked in <b>2004</b> from the <a href="http://www.infodrom.org/projects/sysklogd/">sysklogd standard package</a>. +The goal of the +rsyslog project is to provide a feature-richer and reliable +syslog deamon while retaining drop-in replacement capabilities to stock syslogd. By "reliable", we mean support for reliable transmission +modes like TCP or <a href="http://www.monitorware.com/Common/en/glossary/rfc3195.php">RFC 3195</a> +(syslog-reliable). We do NOT imply that the sysklogd package is unreliable.</p> +<p>The name "rsyslog" stems back to the +planned support for syslog-reliable. Ironically, the initial release +of rsyslog did NEITHER support syslog-reliable NOR tcp based syslog. +Instead, it contained enhanced configurability and other enhancements +(like database support). The reason for this is that full support for RFC 3195 would require even more changes and especially fundamental architectural +changes. Also, questions asked on the loganalysis list and at other +places indicated that RFC3195 is NOT a prime priority for users, but +rather better control over the output format. So there we were, with +a rsyslod that covers a lot of enhancements, but not a single one +of these that made its name ;) Since version 0.9.2, receiving syslog messages +via plain tcp is finally supported, a bit later sending via TCP, too. Starting +with 1.11.0, RFC 3195 is finally support at the receiving side (a.k.a. "listener"). +Support for sending via RFC 3195 is still due. Anyhow, rsyslog has come much +closer to what it name promises.</p> +<p> +The database support was initially included so that our web-based syslog +interface could be used. This is another open source project which can be found +under <a href="http://www.phplogcon.org">http://www.phplogcon.org</a>. We highly recommend having a look at +it. It might not work for you if you expect thousands of messages per +second (because your database won't be able to provide adequate performance), +but in many cases it is a very handy analysis and troubleshooting tool. + +In the mean time, of course, lots of people have found many applications for +writing to databases, so the prime focus is no longer on phpLogcon. + +</p> +<p>Rsyslogd supports an enhanced syslog.conf file format, and also works +with the standard syslog.conf. In theory, it should be possible to simply replace +the syslogd binary with the one that comes with rsyslog. Of course, in order +to use any of the new features, you must re-write your syslog.conf. To learn +how to do this, please review our commented <a href="sample.conf.php">sample.conf</a> +file. It outlines the enhancements over stock syslogd. Discussion has often +arisen of whether having an "old syslogd" logfile format is good or evil. So +far, this has not been solved (but Rainer likes the idea of a new format), so we +need to live with it for the time being. It is planned to be reconsidered in the +3.x release time frame. +<p>If you are interested in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IHE">IHE</a> +environment, you might be interested to hear that rsyslog supports message with +sizes of 32k and more. This feature has been tested, but by default is turned off +(as it has some memory footprint that we didn't want to put on users not +actually requiring it). Search the file syslogd.c and search for "IHE" - you +will find easy and precise instructions on what you need to change (it's just +one line of code!). Please note that RFC 3195/COOKED supports 1K message sizes +only. It'll probably support longer messages in the future, but it is our +believe that using larger messages with current RFC 3195 is a violation of the +standard.<p>In <b>February 2007</b>, 1.13.1 was released and served for quite a +while as a stable reference. Unfortunately, it was not later released as stable, +so the stable build became quite outdated.<p>In <b>June 2007</b>, Peter Vrabec from Red Hat helped us to create +RPM files for Fedora as well as supporting IPv6. There also seemed to be some +interest from the Red Hat community. This interest and new ideas resulted in a +very busy time with many great additions.<p>In <b>July 2007</b>, Andrew +Pantyukhin added BSD ports files for rsyslog and liblogging. We were strongly +encouraged by this too. It looks like rsyslog is getting more and more momentum. +Let's see what comes next...<p>Also in <b>July 2007</b> (and beginning of +August), Rainer remodled the output part of rsyslog. It got a clean object model +and is now prepared for a plug-in architecture. During that time, some base +ideas for the overall new object model appeared.<p>In <b>August 2007</b> +community involvment grew more and more. Also, more packages appeared. We were +quite happy about that. To facilitate user contributíons, we set up a +<a href="http://wiki.rsyslog.com/">wiki</a> on August 10th, 2007. Also in August +2007, rsyslog 1.18.2 appeared, which is deemed to be quite close to the final +2.0.0 release. With its appearance, the pace of changes was deliberatly reduced, +in order to allow it to mature (see Rainers's +<a href="http://rgerhards.blogspot.com/2007/07/pace-of-changes-in-rsyslog.html"> +blog post</a> on this topic, written a bit early, but covering the essence).<p>Be sure to visit Rainer's <a href="http://rgerhards.blogspot.com/">syslog block</a> +to get some more insight into the development and futures of rsyslog and syslog in general. +Don't be shy to post to either the blog or the +<a href="http://www.rsyslog.com/PNphpBB2.phtml">rsyslog forums</a>.</p> +<h2>Some useful links</h2> +<ul> + <li><a href="http://www.rsyslog.com/Topic4.phtml">the rsyslog change log</a></li> +</ul> +</body> +</html>
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