Problem with syslogd

[Barry Brimer]

On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, Johan Pretorius wrote:

>>> I have RHEL 4 (currently 100% up2date) running on a Dell 2950. For
>>> some reason the syslogd does not log any messages (actually no
>>> messages were even logged with in the last 5 weeks). The syslog.conf
>>> file is the standerd one (no changes made). Also syslogd seems to run
>>> for a while and then dies (not running but pid file exists)
>>>
>>> A reboot does not fix this problem and I have no Idea where to start
>>> looking for the problem. Any suggestions on how to fix/troubleshoot
>>> this problem?
>>
>> Have you verified which, if any files have changed from the RPM defaults:
>>
>> rpm -V sysklogd
>>
>> Have you verified the package signature?
>>
>> rpm -K sysklogd
>
> This is the version I have installed: sysklogd-1.4.1-26_EL (rpm -qa | grep sysklog)
> "rpm -V sysklogd" returns: "S.5....T. c /etc/syslog.conf"
> "rpm -K sysklogd" returns nothing (Can this be right?)
> "syslogd -v" returns: "syslogd 1.4.1"

This seems fine, as long as you have changed the syslog.conf file .. an 
explanation of the output of the rpm -V <package> is available at: 
<http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm/s1-rpm-verify-output.html>

The rpm -K command should only complain if there is is a signature 
mismatch.  This seems fine.

You could try starting syslog with strace in front of it .. it will allow 
you to trace system calls and signals.

Barry