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train_wreck

Member

Registered: 2011-10-22

Posts: 97

a small cron (cronie?) logging question

salut.

on both of my servers I have configured all of the syslog-ng output to be sent to /dev/tty12 via the (already present) "console_all" destination. On one server I have a script that uses the crond available in the base package (which appears to be a version called "cronie") to run every 15 minutes. As a result, my tty12 is filled with entries like the following (for a script named "download"):

/usr/sbin/crond[8964]: (root) CMD (/etc/scripts/download)

Every 15 minutes. This particular script already logs out to a separate location from within the script itself, and is done straight to a file without any console output; as such, I feel this persistent outputting of a single line into syslog is unnecessary. As far as I understand a single log line like this means that the cronjob executed successfully.

Is there any way to disable just the cron output from being logged to the screen? The reason I ask is simply because it would make the tty12 easier to read; the servers are in my basement and are almost always running with no keyboard, just a CRT connected to them displaying tty12, and I'd like to be able to view more information at a time.  I figured maybe commenting out references to cron in /etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf would do it, but this doesn't seem to have an effect. Ideally I would like to keep cron logging to its usual file (/var/log/crond.log) but just not have it go to the /dev/tty12.

I've included my syslog-ng.conf file below:

@version: 3.3
#
# /etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf
#

options {
  stats_freq (0);
  flush_lines (0);
  time_reopen (10);
  log_fifo_size (10000);
  chain_hostnames (off);
  use_dns (no);
  use_fqdn (no);
  create_dirs (no);
  keep_hostname (yes);
  perm(0640);
  group("log");
};

source src {
  unix-dgram("/dev/log");
  internal();
  file("/proc/kmsg");
};

destination d_authlog { file("/var/log/auth.log"); };
destination d_syslog { file("/var/log/syslog.log"); };
#destination d_cron { file("/var/log/crond.log"); };
destination d_daemon { file("/var/log/daemon.log"); };
destination d_kernel { file("/var/log/kernel.log"); };
destination d_lpr { file("/var/log/lpr.log"); };
destination d_user { file("/var/log/user.log"); };
destination d_uucp { file("/var/log/uucp.log"); };
destination d_mail { file("/var/log/mail.log"); };
destination d_news { file("/var/log/news.log"); };
destination d_ppp { file("/var/log/ppp.log"); };
destination d_debug { file("/var/log/debug.log"); };
destination d_messages { file("/var/log/messages.log"); };
destination d_errors { file("/var/log/errors.log"); };
destination d_everything { file("/var/log/everything.log"); };
destination d_iptables { file("/var/log/iptables.log"); };
destination d_acpid { file("/var/log/acpid.log"); };
destination d_console { usertty("root"); };

# Log everything to tty12
destination console_all { file("/dev/tty12"); };

filter f_auth { facility(auth); };
filter f_authpriv { facility(auth, authpriv); };
filter f_syslog { program(syslog-ng); };
#filter f_cron { facility(cron); };
filter f_daemon { facility(daemon); };
filter f_kernel { facility(kern) and not filter(f_iptables); };
filter f_lpr { facility(lpr); };
filter f_mail { facility(mail); };
filter f_news { facility(news); };
filter f_user { facility(user); };
filter f_uucp { facility(uucp); };
filter f_ppp { facility(local2); };
filter f_debug { not facility(auth, authpriv, news, mail); };
filter f_messages { level(info..warn) and not facility(auth, authpriv, mail, news, cron) and not program(syslog-ng) and not filter(f_iptables); };
filter f_everything { level(debug..emerg) and not facility(auth, authpriv); };
filter f_emergency { level(emerg); };
filter f_info { level(info); };
filter f_notice { level(notice); };
filter f_warn { level(warn); };
filter f_crit { level(crit); };
filter f_err { level(err); };
filter f_iptables { match("IN=" value("MESSAGE")) and match("OUT=" value("MESSAGE")); };
filter f_acpid { program("acpid"); };

log { source(src); filter(f_acpid); destination(d_acpid); };
log { source(src); filter(f_authpriv); destination(d_authlog); };
log { source(src); filter(f_syslog); destination(d_syslog); };
#log { source(src); filter(f_cron); destination(d_cron); };
log { source(src); filter(f_daemon); destination(d_daemon); };
log { source(src); filter(f_kernel); destination(d_kernel); };
log { source(src); filter(f_lpr); destination(d_lpr); };
log { source(src); filter(f_mail); destination(d_mail); };
log { source(src); filter(f_news); destination(d_news); };
log { source(src); filter(f_ppp); destination(d_ppp); };
log { source(src); filter(f_user); destination(d_user); };
log { source(src); filter(f_uucp); destination(d_uucp); };
#log { source(src); filter(f_debug); destination(d_debug); };
log { source(src); filter(f_messages); destination(d_messages); };
log { source(src); filter(f_err); destination(d_errors); };
log { source(src); filter(f_emergency); destination(d_console); };
log { source(src); filter(f_everything); destination(d_everything); };
log { source(src); filter(f_iptables); destination(d_iptables); };

# Log everything to tty12
log { source(src); destination(console_all); };

my inclination is that creating a filter rule that filters nothing but cron stuff and have that sent to the screen might be the solution? thanks in advance.

BentB

Member

From: Birkerød, Denmark

Registered: 2007-01-17

Posts: 22

Website

Re: a small cron (cronie?) logging question

cronie is apparently a fork of vixie-cron and to the best of my knowledge (I'm using dcron so I do not have a man page available) with vixie-cron you can suppress output to the system log by putting a '-' (minus sign) as the first character of the crontab line for your command.

Check the man page for your version of cron to see if you have that option.

Bent