2 mo. ago • 94%

Is it good practice to run a system without a syslog daemon?

If I'm using Arch or another minimal distro, is it a good idea to install a syslog daemon? Or can I go without?

24 comments

You dont need syslog. Journald is good enough for most systems.

26
- I also don't like the duplication of logs in journald and syslog, so I always disable forwarding to syslog
  
  5
- What if I'm on another minimal distro, like Artix, that doesn't use systemd? Journald is a systemd thing, and I'm not going to install systemd on top of a perfectly good init system.
  
  0
  
  Use whatever that distro recommends then - which as far as I can tell seems to be svlogd for runit based systems. Though you should consult their documentation and make your own decision on which logger to use.
  
  3
Whatever floats your boat, but if something goes wrong you don't really have anything to figure out what's going on.

8
It's not necessary, but a good thing to have if something goes wrong and you want to debug/monitor something. It's really up to you and your needs.

4
It’s often more useful for minimal installations to keep the system log daemon running so that you can see when things happen and stop them from happening.

Especially now that even very low power embedded systems run multiple cpu cores at multi-ghz clocks, interface with gigabytes of memory, hundreds of gigabytes of attached storage and communicate through multi-gigabit network links, lots of stuff can be happening that is unwanted or simply unnecessary without any external indications.

What are you trying to accomplish by not running a syslog daemon?

3
- Not really trying to accomplish much, just trying to save a few seconds in the manual installation process.
  
  0
  
  If it’s a race from boot to login prompt then making sure the installer never has to dial out and retrieve packages would be a bigger savings. Making sure the installer is on the fastest bus possible would be huge too. I think one nvme installing to another one would be fastest (assuming enough lanes).
  
  Don’t take the wheelie bars off your dragster to save weight, wheelies are slow.
  
  2
wish I knew how to use the journal, seems like there isn't any good way to just search the previous session's logs without a mountain of fuss or having to guess file names

3
- Check that you actually have persistent storage enabled. (See man journald.conf and search for Storage)
  
  Read up on the numerous parameters to journalctl. (man journalctl)
  
  journalctl --boot -2 will show logs from previous boot.
  
  journalctl --since "-2 weeks" --unit=sshd last two weeks worth of sshd logs.
  
  7
  
  I think there's a minor mistake in your command. jounalctl --boot -1 is the previous boot. The counting starts at --boot 0 for the current one.
  
  3
  
  What if I'm on another minimal distro, like Artix, that doesn't use systemd? Journald is a systemd thing, and I'm not going to install systemd on top of a perfectly good init system.
  
  -1
If you're on arch you use redhat's garbage. On non-corpo linux syslog can be disabled if you want, though I'd prefer to just symlink/mount /var/log to a memory filesystem instead.

-23
- On non-corpo linux syslog can be disabled
  
  systemctl disable --now systemd-journald
  
  I'd prefer to just symlink/mount /var/log to a memory filesystem instead
  
  Set Storage=volatile in /etc/systemd/journald.conf
  
  9
  
  Like how you cropped my message to make it seem like I was implying you couldn't disable logging on systemd
  
  -7
- Mounting /var/log in RAM just seems like more trouble than it's worth.
  
  0

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