Re: Very strange syslogd behavior

From: Ross Vandegrift (ross@willow.seitz.com)
Date: Tue Jan 27 2004 - 17:14:38 CET


On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 10:28:14PM +0100, Martin Schulze wrote:
> Could you run tcpdump / ethereal on the log host using port 514/udp
> to ensure that messages from the hosts you are missing are indeed
> send to the log host and just not processed by syslogd?

(Minor update - the VPN server messages are being logged correctly, just
under a different name than I thought. Too many names for one host...)

Sure - I'm definitely seeing the packets show up:

10:54:52.603067 hedge.seitz.com.syslog > sequoia.seitz.com.syslog: udp 98 (DF)
10:54:52.604140 hedge.seitz.com.syslog > sequoia.seitz.com.syslog: udp 42 (DF)

hedge.seitz.com is the outgoing mail relay.

I can verify that some of hedge's messages are getting through:
sequoia:/var/log# grep hedge syslog | tail -n 2
Jan 27 10:56:32 hedge ucd-snmp[424]: [smux_accept] accepted fd 4 from 127.0.0.1:3357
Jan 27 10:56:42 hedge ucd-snmp[424]: [smux_accept] accepted fd 4 from 127.0.0.1:3359

But mail messages are still weird (it looks like they came back for a
while overnight, but are gone again):
sequoia:/var/log/mail# grep hedge mail.log | tail -n 2
Jan 27 01:01:14 hedge sm-mta[26840]: i0R5hhAP026840: from=<BUTLER@seitz.com>, size=5499, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<6FB400F58D1@hal.seitz.com>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=hal.seitz.com [146.145.147.120]
Jan 27 10:18:11 hedge sm-mta[2415]: STARTTLS=server, relay=localhost [127.0.0.1], version=TLSv1/SSLv3, verify=NO, cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA, bits=168/168

I just sent an email from our main server, for relaying through hedge,
and then ran the above command. It's now close to 11:00 and the above
message is still the last from hedge in the mail.log.

> Not sure why they would not be processed, though. If they show up
> in the network dump you should run syslogd -d and send it a SIGHUP
> to continue with debug output (better redirect it into a file) so
> you can see incoming messages as they are processed.

Ok, it looks like syslogd isn't receiving the messages. I've got the
debug output in syslogdebug.log and "grep 'logmsg: mail.*hedge'
syslogdebug.log" comes out empty.

I have no idea what's going on. If I reenable local logging on hedge,
all the mail messages are correctly logged. I suppose it's possible
that the packets are being lost somehow, but why would only mail
messages be lost?

Thanks so much for your help!

-- 
Ross Vandegrift
ross@willow.seitz.com
A Pope has a Water Cannon.                               It is a Water Cannon.
He fires Holy-Water from it.                        It is a Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses it.                                 It is a Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses the Hell out of it.          It is a Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He has it pierced.                It is a Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He makes it official.       It is a Canon Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
Batman and Robin arrive.                                       He shoots them.


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