Log file formats.

Simon E Spero (ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu)
Sun, 03 Jul 94 13:42:06 -0400


I'm currently tidying up the logging code for the multithreaded daemon, and
I'd like to do a quick survey.

Logging is handled via a similar mechanism to BGI; there can be several
dyamically linked logging modules active at any one time; each logged event
is passed to each of them. The protocol for logging was developed to allow
incremental statistics gathering modules to be loaded into the server to
allow for real-time monitoring. However, an added bonus is that it allows
the administrator to choose the log format best suited to her needs.

At the moment I have modules that support the only NCSA format, together with
the newer common format. I'm thinking of adding a module to support a
binary format, so that DNS lookup of hosts, and pretty printing of dates can
be delayed until they're needed (either for access control, or log
pretty printing). Has anybody tried something similar that I should try to
be compatible with?

Simon