Red Hat and GNU Linux Log Questions Answered

Red Hat and GNU Linux Log Questions Answered.
This is a FAQ file for questions commonly asked about logs.

I just changed the e-mail address that my logwatch reports to. Do I have to change anything to get the change to take effect?

The Logwatch program reports important system log events to an e-mail account. The e-mail address, and other configuration files are set in /etc/log.d/conf/logwatch.conf. Since the logwatch is operated from a cron job (a symlink located in /etc/cron.daily/00-logwatch) there is no need to take any additional actions for the e-mail address to take effect.

How do I change the system logging setup of a particular service or daemon?

Your system logger checks for configuration of services in the /etc/log.d/conf/services. You can change these files to specify log file names and detail for individual services.

Can I get the system to dump out all log entries in real time to the screen?

You can tell the system where system log entries should be sent in the /etc/syslog.conf file. Adding the following entry will direct all messages to TTY12. If you're at the console, just press ALT-F12, and you'll instantly see all the log transactions occuring on your system. Be sure to make this change take effect by restarting the syslog daemon. This is done on Red Hat with the following command:
service syslogd restart

Add the following lines to /etc/syslog.conf to enable screen logging:
#Dump all messages to TTY 12
*.* /dev/tty12

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