persist-tool — Display the content of the persist file
persist-tool
[command] [options]
NOTE: The persist-tool application is distributed with the system logging application, and is usually part of the syslog-ng package. The latest version of the syslog-ng application is available at https://syslog-ng.com..
This manual page is only an abstract, for the complete documentation of syslog-ng, see https://syslog-ng.com..
The persist-tool application is a utility that can be used to dump the content of the persist file, and manipulate its content.
Persist-tool is a special tool for syslog-ng experts. Do use the tool unless you know exactly what you are doing. Misconfiguring it will result in irrecoverable damage to the persist file, without any warning.
Limitations:
Wildcard characters are not supported in file/directory names.
dump
[options] [persist_file]
Use the dump command to print the current content of the persist file in JSON format to the console.
The dump command has the following options:
Display a brief help message.
Example:
persist-tool dump /opt/syslog-ng/var/syslog-ng.persist
The output looks like:
run_id = { "value": "00 00 00 00 0C 00 00 00 " } host_id = { "value": "00 00 00 00 5F 49 2F 01 " }
add
[options] [input_file]
Use the add command to add or modify a specified state-entry in the persist file. The state-entry should be in the same format as the dump command displays it. If the given state-entry already exists, it will be updated. Otherwise, a new value will be added. If the given persist state is invalid, it will be skipped.
To use the add command: use persist-tool dump to print the content of the current persist file, and redirect it to a file. Edit the content of this file. Use persist-tool add with this file to modify the persist.
The add command has the following options:
Display a brief help message.
Required parameter. The directory where the persist file is located at. The name of the persist file stored in this directory must be syslog-ng.persist
.
Optional parameter. The name of the persist file to generate. Default value: syslog-ng.persist
.
Example:
/opt/syslog-ng/bin/persist-tool add dump_persist -o .
The valid output looks like:
log_reader_curpos(Application) OK affile_sd_curpos(/var/aaa.txt) OK
The invalid output looks like:
log_reader_curpos(Application) OK wrong FAILED (error: Invalid entry syntax) affile_sd_curpos(/var/aaa.txt) OK
For the detailed documentation of syslog-ng OSE see The syslog-ng OSE Administrator Guide
If you experience any problems or need help with syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng mailing list.
For news and notifications about of syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng blogs.
Copyright 2000-2019 One Identity. Published under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works (by-nc-nd) 3.0 license. For details, see https://creativecommons.org//. The latest version is always available at https://www.syslog-ng.com.
Table of Contents
syslog-ng-ctl — Display message statistics and enable verbose, debug and trace modes in syslog-ng Open Source Edition
syslog-ng-ctl
[command] [options]
NOTE: The syslog-ng-ctl application is distributed with the syslog-ng Open Source Edition system logging application, and is usually part of the syslog-ng package. The latest version of the syslog-ng application is available at syslog-ng page.
This manual page is only an abstract, for the complete documentation of syslog-ng, see the syslog-ng Documentation page.
The syslog-ng-ctl application is a utility that can be used to:
enable/disable various syslog-ng messages for troubleshooting
display statistics about the processed messages
handling password-protected private keys
display the currently running configuration of syslog-ng OSE
reload the configuration of syslog-ng OSE.
command
[options]
Use the syslog-ng-ctl <command> --set=on command to display verbose, trace, or debug messages. If you are trying to solve configuration problems, the verbose (and occasionally trace) messages are usually sufficient. Debug messages are needed mostly for finding software errors. After solving the problem, do not forget to turn these messages off using the syslog-ng-ctl <command> --set=off. Note that enabling debug messages does not enable verbose and trace messages.
Use syslog-ng-ctl <command> without any parameters to display whether the particular type of messages are enabled or not.
If you need to use a non-standard control socket to access syslog-ng, use the syslog-ng-ctl <command> --set=on --control=<socket> command to specify the socket to use.
Print verbose messages. If syslog-ng was started with the --stderr
or -e
option, the messages will be sent to stderr. If not specified, syslog-ng will log such messages to its internal source.
Print trace messages of how messages are processed. If syslog-ng was started with the --stderr
or -e
option, the messages will be sent to stderr. If not specified, syslog-ng will log such messages to its internal source.
Print debug messages. If syslog-ng was started with the --stderr
or -e
option, the messages will be sent to stderr. If not specified, syslog-ng will log such messages to its internal source.
Example:
syslog-ng-ctl verbose --set=on
The syslog-ng OSE application stores various data, metrics, and statistics in a hash table. Every property has a name and a value. For example:
[syslog-ng] | |_[destinations]-[network]-[tcp]->[stats]->{received=12;dropped=2} | |_[sources]-[sql]-[stats]->{received=501;dropped=0}
You can query the nodes of this tree, and also use filters to select the information you need. A query is actually a path in the tree. You can also use the ?
and *
wildcards. For example:
Select every property: *
Select all dropped
value from every stats
node: *.stats.dropped
The nodes and properties available in the tree depend on your syslog-ng OSE configuration (that is, the sources, destinations, and other objects you have configured), and also on your stats-level()
settings.
syslog-ng-ctl query list
Use the syslog-ng-ctl query list command to display the list of metrics that syslog-ng OSE collects about the processed messages. For details about the displayed metrics, see The syslog-ng Administrator Guide???.
An example output:
center.received.stats.processed center.queued.stats.processed destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.dropped destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.processed destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.queued destination.d_elastic.stats.processed source.s_tcp.stats.processed source.severity.7.stats.processed source.severity.0.stats.processed source.severity.1.stats.processed source.severity.2.stats.processed source.severity.3.stats.processed source.severity.4.stats.processed source.severity.5.stats.processed source.severity.6.stats.processed source.facility.7.stats.processed source.facility.16.stats.processed source.facility.8.stats.processed source.facility.17.stats.processed source.facility.9.stats.processed source.facility.18.stats.processed source.facility.19.stats.processed source.facility.20.stats.processed source.facility.0.stats.processed source.facility.21.stats.processed source.facility.1.stats.processed source.facility.10.stats.processed source.facility.22.stats.processed source.facility.2.stats.processed source.facility.11.stats.processed source.facility.23.stats.processed source.facility.3.stats.processed source.facility.12.stats.processed source.facility.4.stats.processed source.facility.13.stats.processed source.facility.5.stats.processed source.facility.14.stats.processed source.facility.6.stats.processed source.facility.15.stats.processed source.facility.other.stats.processed global.payload_reallocs.stats.processed global.msg_clones.stats.processed global.sdata_updates.stats.processed tag..source.s_tcp.stats.processed
The syslog-ng-ctl query list command has the following options:
Use --reset to set the selected counters to 0 after executing the query.
syslog-ng-ctl query get
[options]
The syslog-ng-ctl query get <query> command lists the nodes that match the query, and their values.
For example, the "destination*"
query lists the configured destinations, and the metrics related to each destination. An example output:
destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.dropped=0 destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.processed=0 destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.queued=0 destination.d_elastic.stats.processed=0
The syslog-ng-ctl query get command has the following options:
Add up the result of each matching node and return only a single number.
For example, the syslog-ng-ctl query get --sum "destination*.dropped"
command displays the number of messages dropped by the syslog-ng OSE instance.
Use --reset to set the selected counters to 0 after executing the query.
stats
[options]
Use the stats command to display statistics about the processed messages. For details about the displayed statistics, see The syslog-ng Administrator Guide???. The stats command has the following options:
Specify the socket to use to access syslog-ng. Only needed when using a non-standard socket.
Reset all statistics to zero, except for the queued
counters. (The queued
counters show the number of messages in the message queue of the destination driver, waiting to be sent to the destination.)
Example:
syslog-ng-ctl stats
An example output:
src.internal;s_all#0;;a;processed;6445 src.internal;s_all#0;;a;stamp;1268989330 destination;df_auth;;a;processed;404 destination;df_news_dot_notice;;a;processed;0 destination;df_news_dot_err;;a;processed;0 destination;d_ssb;;a;processed;7128 destination;df_uucp;;a;processed;0 source;s_all;;a;processed;7128 destination;df_mail;;a;processed;0 destination;df_user;;a;processed;1 destination;df_daemon;;a;processed;1 destination;df_debug;;a;processed;15 destination;df_messages;;a;processed;54 destination;dp_xconsole;;a;processed;671 dst.tcp;d_network#0;10.50.0.111:514;a;dropped;5080 dst.tcp;d_network#0;10.50.0.111:514;a;processed;7128 dst.tcp;d_network#0;10.50.0.111:514;a;queued;2048 destination;df_syslog;;a;processed;6724 destination;df_facility_dot_warn;;a;processed;0 destination;df_news_dot_crit;;a;processed;0 destination;df_lpr;;a;processed;0 destination;du_all;;a;processed;0 destination;df_facility_dot_info;;a;processed;0 center;;received;a;processed;0 destination;df_kern;;a;processed;70 center;;queued;a;processed;0 destination;df_facility_dot_err;;a;processed;0
syslog-ng-ctl credentials
[options]
The syslog-ng-ctl credentials status command allows you to query the status of the private keys that syslog-ng OSE uses in the network()
and syslog()
drivers. You can also provide the passphrase for password-protected private keys using the syslog-ng-ctl credentials add command. For details on using password-protected keys, see The syslog-ng Administrator Guide .
syslog-ng-ctl credentials status
[options]
The syslog-ng-ctl credentials status command allows you to query the status of the private keys that syslog-ng OSE uses in the network()
and syslog()
drivers. The command returns the list of private keys used, and their status. For example:
syslog-ng-ctl credentials status Secret store status: /home/user/ssl_test/client-1/client-encrypted.key SUCCESS
If the status of a key is PENDING, you must provide the passphrase for the key, otherwise syslog-ng OSE cannot use it. The sources and destinations that use these keys will not work until you provide the passwords. Other parts of the syslog-ng OSE configuration will be unaffected. You must provide the passphrase of the password-protected keys every time syslog-ng OSE is restarted.
The following log message also notifies you of PENDING passphrases:
Waiting for password; keyfile='private.key'
Specify the socket to use to access syslog-ng. Only needed when using a non-standard socket.
syslog-ng-ctl credentials add
[options]
You can add the passphrase to a password-protected private key file using the following command. syslog-ng OSE will display a prompt for you to enter the passphrase. We recommend that you use this method.
syslog-ng-ctl credentials add --id=<path-to-the-key>
Alternatively, you can include the passphrase in the --secret
parameter:
syslog-ng-ctl credentials add --id=<path-to-the-key> --secret=<passphrase-of-the-key>
Or you can pipe the passphrase to the syslog-ng-ctl command, for example:
echo "<passphrase-of-the-key>" | syslog-ng-ctl credentials add --id=<path-to-the-key>
Specify the socket to use to access syslog-ng. Only needed when using a non-standard socket.
The path to the password-protected private key file. This is the same path that you use in the key-file()
option of the syslog-ng OSE configuration file.
The password or passphrase of the private key.
syslog-ng-ctl config
[options]
Use the syslog-ng-ctl config command to display the configuration that syslog-ng OSE is currently running. Note by default, only the content of the main configuration file are displayed, included files are not resolved. To resolve included files and display the entire configuration, use the syslog-ng-ctl config --preprocessed command.
syslog-ng-ctl reload
[options]
Use the syslog-ng-ctl reload command to reload the configuration file of syslog-ng OSE without having to restart the syslog-ng OSE application. The syslog-ng-ctl reload works like a SIGHUP.
The syslog-ng-ctl reload command returns 0 if the operation was successful, 1 otherwise.
The syslog-ng Documentation page
For the detailed documentation of syslog-ng OSE see the syslog-ng Documentation page
If you experience any problems or need help with syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng mailing list.
For news and notifications about of syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng blogs.
Table of Contents
syslog-ng-debun — syslog-ng DEBUg buNdle generator
syslog-ng-debun
[options]
NOTE: The syslog-ng-debun application is distributed with the syslog-ng OSE system logging application, and is usually part of the syslog-ng OSE package. The latest version of the syslog-ng OSE application is available at the syslog-ng page.
This manual page is only an abstract, for the complete documentation of syslog-ng, see the syslog-ng Documentation page.
The syslog-ng-debun tool collects and saves information about your syslog-ng OSE installation, making troubleshooting easier, especially if you ask help about your syslog-ng OSE related problem.
Run syslog-ng-debun. Using this option is required to actually execute the data collection with syslog-ng-debun. It is needed to prevent accidentally running syslog-ng-debun.
Display the help page.
Do not collect privacy-sensitive data, for example, process tree, fstab, and so on. If you use with -d
, then the following parameters will be used for debug mode:-Fev
The directory where syslog-ng OSE is installed instead of /opt/syslog-ng
.
Set the working directory, where the debug bundle will be saved. Default value: /tmp
. The name of the created file is syslog.debun.${host}.${date}.${3-random-characters-or-pid}.tgz
Start syslog-ng OSE in debug mode, using the -Fedv --enable-core
options.
Warning! Using this option under high message load may increase disk I/O during the debug, and the resulting debug bundle can be huge. To exit debug mode, press Enter.
Start syslog-ng OSE in debug mode, using the specified command-line options. To exit debug mode, press Enter. For details on the available options, see ???.
Run syslog-ng OSE in noninteractive debug mode for <seconds>, and automatically exit debug mode after the specified number of seconds.
Wait <seconds> seconds before starting debug mode.
Enable syscall tracing (strace -f or truss -f). Note that using -s
itself does not enable debug mode, only traces the system calls of an already running syslog-ng OSE process. To trace system calls in debug mode, use both the -s
and -d
options.
Capturing packets requires a packet capture tool on the host. The syslog-ng-debun tool attempts to use tcpdump on most platforms, except for Solaris, where it uses snoop.
Capture packets only on the specified interface, for example, eth0
.
Capture incoming packets using the following filter: port 514 or port 601 or port 53
Capture incoming packets using the specified filter.
Run syslog-ng OSE in noninteractive debug mode for <seconds>, and automatically exit debug mode after the specified number of seconds.
syslog-ng-debun -r
Create a simple debug bundle, collecting information about your environment, for example, list packages containing the word: syslog, ldd of your syslog-binary, and so on.
syslog-ng-debun -r -l
Similar to syslog-ng-debun -r, but without privacy-sensitive information. For example, the following is NOT collected: fstab, df output, mount info, ip / network interface configuration, DNS resolv info, and process tree.
syslog-ng-debun -r -d
Similar to syslog-ng-debun -r, but it also stops syslog-ng, then restarts it in debug mode (-Fedv --enable-core
). To stop debug mode, press Enter. The output of the debug mode collected into a separate file, and also added to the debug bundle.
syslog-ng-debun -r -s
Trace the system calls (using strace or truss) of an already running syslog-ng OSE process.
syslog-ng-debun -r -d -s
Restart syslog-ng OSE in debug mode, and also trace the system calls (using strace or truss) of the syslog-ng OSE process.
syslog-ng-debun -r -p
Run packet capture (pcap) with the filter: port 514 or port 601 or port 53
Also waits for pressing Enter, like debug mode.
syslog-ng-debun -r -p -t 10
Noninteractive debug mode: Similar to syslog-ng-debun -r -p, but automatically exit after 10 seconds.
syslog-ng-debun -r -P "host 1.2.3.4" -D "-Fev --enable-core"
Change the packet-capturing filter from the default to host 1.2.3.4
. Also change debugging parameters from the default to -Fev --enable-core
. Since a timeout (-t
) is not given, waits for pressing Enter.
syslog-ng-debun -r -p -d -w 5 -t 10
Collect pcap and debug mode output following this scenario:
Start packet capture with default parameters (-p
)
Wait 5 seconds (-w 5
)
Stop syslog-ng
Start syslog-ng in debug mode with default parameters (-d
)
Wait 10 seconds (-t 10
)
Stop syslog-ng debuging
Start syslog-ng
Stop packet capturing
For the detailed documentation of syslog-ng OSE see the syslog-ng Documentation page
If you experience any problems or need help with syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng mailing list.
For news and notifications about of syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng blogs.
Table of Contents
syslog-ng — syslog-ng system logger application
syslog-ng
[options]
This manual page is only an abstract, for the complete documentation of syslog-ng, see the syslog-ng Documentation page or the syslog-ng page.
The syslog-ng OSE application is a flexible and highly scalable system logging application. Typically, syslog-ng is used to manage log messages and implement centralized logging, where the aim is to collect the log messages of several devices on a single, central log server. The different devices - called syslog-ng clients - all run syslog-ng, and collect the log messages from the various applications, files, and other sources. The clients send all important log messages to the remote syslog-ng server, where the server sorts and stores them.
Run syslog-ng OSE process with the specified POSIX capability flags.
If the --no-caps
option is not set,syslog-ng OSE has been compiled with the --enable-linux-caps
compile option, and the host supports CAP_SYSLOG, syslog-ng OSE uses the following capabilities: "cap_net_bind_service, cap_net_broadcast, cap_net_raw, cap_dac_read_search, cap_dac_override, cap_chown, cap_fowner=p cap_syslog=ep"
If the --no-caps
option is not set, and the host does not support CAP_SYSLOG, syslog-ng OSE uses the following capabilities: "cap_net_bind_service, cap_net_broadcast, cap_net_raw,cap_dac_read_search, cap_dac_override, cap_chown, cap_fowner=p cap_sys_admin=ep"
For example:
/opt/syslog-ng/sbin/syslog-ng -Fv --caps cap_sys_admin,cap_chown,cap_dac_override,cap_net_bind_service,cap_fowner=pi
Note that the capabilities are not case sensitive, the following command is also good: /opt/syslog-ng/sbin/syslog-ng -Fv --caps CAP_SYS_ADMIN,CAP_CHOWN,CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE,CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE,CAP_FOWNER=pi
For details on the capability flags, see the following man pages: cap_from_text(3)
and capabilities(7)
Use the specified configuration file.
Change root to the specified directory. The configuration file is read after chrooting so, the configuration file must be available within the chroot. That way it is also possible to reload the syslog-ng configuration after chrooting. However, note that the --user
and --group
options are resolved before chrooting.
Set the location of the syslog-ng control socket. Default value: /var/run/syslog-ng.ctl
Start syslog-ng in debug mode.
A comma-separated list of the modules that are loaded automatically. Modules not loaded automatically can be loaded by including the @module <modulename>
statement in the syslog-ng OSE configuration file. The following modules are loaded by default: affile, afprog, afsocket, afuser, basicfuncs, csvparser, dbparser, syslogformat, afsql, system-source. Available only in syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.3 and later.
Enable syslog-ng to write core files in case of a crash to help support and debugging.
Set the minimal number of required file descriptors (fd-s). This sets how many files syslog-ng can keep open simultaneously. Default value: 4096
. Note that this does not override the global ulimit setting of the host.
Do not daemonize, run in the foreground. When running in the foreground, syslog-ng OSE starts from the current directory ($CWD
) so it can create core files (normally, syslog-ng OSE starts from $PREFIX/var
).
Switch to the specified group after initializing the configuration file.
Display a brief help message.
Display the list and description of the available modules. Note that not all of these modules are loaded automatically, only the ones specified in the --default-modules option. Available only in syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.3 and later.
Run syslog-ng as root, without capability-support. This is the default behavior. On Linux, it is possible to run syslog-ng as non-root with capability-support if syslog-ng was compiled with the --enable-linux-caps
option enabled. (Execute syslog-ng --version to display the list of enabled build parameters.)
To run syslog-ng OSE with specific capabilities, use the --caps
option.
Set the path and name of the syslog-ng.persist
file where the persistent options and data are stored.
Set path to the PID file where the pid of the main process is stored.
After processing the configuration file and resolving included files and variables, write the resulting configuration into the specified output file. Available only in syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.3 and later.
In syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.23 and later, you can display the preprocessed configuration on stdout using --preprocess-into=/dev/stdout
Sets how to run syslog-ng: in the foreground
(mainly used for debugging), in the background
as a daemon, or in safe-background
mode. By default, syslog-ng runs in safe-background
mode. This mode creates a supervisor process called supervising syslog-ng
, that restarts syslog-ng if it crashes.
Log internal messages of syslog-ng to stderr. Mainly used for debugging purposes in conjunction with the --foreground
option. If not specified, syslog-ng will log such messages to its internal source.
Verify that the configuration file is syntactically correct and exit.
Switch to the specified user after initializing the configuration file (and optionally chrooting). Note that it is not possible to reload the syslog-ng configuration if the specified user has no privilege to create the /dev/log
file.
Enable verbose logging used to troubleshoot syslog-ng.
Display version number and compilation information, and also the list and short description of the available modules. For detailed description of the available modules, see the --module-registry option. Note that not all of these modules are loaded automatically, only the ones specified in the --default-modules option. When including configuration snippets in the configuration files, the default path where syslog-ng looks for the snippets is displayed as Include-Path.
Sets the number of worker threads syslog-ng OSE can use, including the main syslog-ng OSE thread. Note that certain operations in syslog-ng OSE can use threads that are not limited by this option. This setting has effect only when syslog-ng OSE is running in multithreaded mode. Available only in syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.3 and later. See The syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.15 Administrator Guide for details.
For the detailed documentation of syslog-ng OSE see the syslog-ng Documentation page
If you experience any problems or need help with syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng mailing list.
For news and notifications about of syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng blogs.
© 2025 One Identity LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Nutzungsbedingungen Datenschutz Cookie Preference Center