Managing Linux® Systems with Webmin™ System Administration and Module Development

13.1. Introduction to Logging

Many Linux servers and daemons generate log messages for errors, warnings, requests, and diagnostic information. In most cases, these logs are not written directly to a file—instead, they are passed to the UNIX logging program syslog which decides what to do with each log message. Logs can be written to a file, sent to another server, passed to another program via a pipe, or even broadcast to all users logged into the system. Different types of messages from different servers can be logged using each of these methods.

Normally logs are written to files in the /var/log directory. On most Linux distributions the file /var/log/messages contains general information, error and warning messages, the file /var/log/mail ...