[syslog-ng][] is a nice, flexible logging system that I use on most of
my boxes.  There's a good [admin guide][guide], but here are some
short notes so I don't forget what I've done locally.

I wanted to store my verbose [[git-daemon|gitweb]] logs in their own
file, so I added the following to
`/etc/syslog-ng/conf.d/git-daemon.conf`:

    destination git_daemon_file {
      file("/var/log/git-daemon");
      };

    filter git_daemon_filter {
      program("git-daemon");
      };

    filter git_daemon_drop_filter {
      #level(notice, debug);
      level(debug);
      };

    log {
      source(src);
      filter(git_daemon_filter);
      filter(git_daemon_drop_filter);
      flags(final);
      };

    log {
      source(src);
      filter(git_daemon_filter);
      destination(git_daemon_file);
      flags(final);
      };

In `/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf`, you'll want to add something like:

    include "conf.d";

to source the config files from `/etc/syslog-ng/conf.d` in
alphabetical order.  You should add the `include` line before any
`log` definitions so you can use `final` to in your auxiliary rules.

Check that you didn't mess anything up with:

    $ syslog-ng --syntax-only

Restart `syslog-ng` with:

    # /etc/init.d/syslog-ng reload


[syslog-ng]: http://www.balabit.com/network-security/syslog-ng
[guide]: http://www.balabit.com/sites/default/files/documents/syslog-ng-v3.0-guide-admin-en.html/bk01-toc.html

[[!tag tags/tools]]
[[!tag tags/linux]]