< Previous Page Return to Title Page Next Page >

Creating a Generalized Facility

  • Is it possible to create a "general" log monitoring facility or toolkit that requires configuration (rather than re-coding) to solve most problems, and is thus easily usable by novice system administrators?
  • What features should such a facility or toolkit contain?
  • Can templates (possibly sets of regexes -- or, better, SNOBOL patterns) be used to handle differences in logging formats and methods between applications (e.g. sendmail, Apache, tcpdump, etc.)?
  • Existing generalized log monitors are primitive, but provide some implementation ideas. They include:
  • What changes need to be made to syslogd to make such a facility useful and reliable?
  • Can such a general facility become a distinguishing feature of BSD UNIX-based operating systems?