Syslog

Configure Ubuntu syslog-ng to receive logs form specific host

I wanted to log messages from Billion BiPac 7800GZ router and Netgear to a specific file on my local Ubuntu 13.04 box. Unfortunately the regular syslog daemon will not allow this. Syslog-ng is a replacement and will remove legacy syslog packages like klogd, sysklogd, rsyslog and ubuntu-minimal.

# sudo apt-get install syslog-ng

Then edit /etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf to add udp listening to accept remote syslogs. We could do this under the s_all source, but we need to define a different source so our remote hosts logs do not get mixed in with our regular ones. Place this after source s_all is finished.

source s_net { udp (); };

Add filter for my Billion router host I use its ip 192.168.1.254

filter f_billion { host( "192.168.1.254" ); };

Add destination logging file

destination d_billion { file("/var/log/billion.log"); };

Put all rules together source (s_net); filter (f_billion); destination file (d_billion) into logging rule

log { source ( s_net ); filter( f_billion); destination ( d_billion); };

Restart syslog-ng

# sudo /etc/init.d/syslog-ng restart

Verify that syslog-ng demon is listening

# netstat -lu | grep syslog
udp        0      0 *:syslog                *:*
# netstat -ln | grep :514
udp        0      0 0.0.0.0:514             0.0.0.0:*

Since we added a new logfile, we need to modify /etc/logrotate.d/syslog-ng to make sure our new logfile gets rolled. This entry below has to go in before the last one which restarts the syslog-ng daemon.

/var/log/billion.log {
   rotate 7
   weekly
   missingok
   notifempty
   compress
}

Sending Netgear & Billion syslog messages to external host

Netgear

Navigate to web interface (default ip: 192.168.0.1) > Logs > Syslog section choose: Send to this Syslog server IP address [192.168.1.250] > apply

!Note: in this example our Ubuntu box is configured with static ip address 192.168.0.250

Netgear router MBRN3000

Billion

Please input your syslog Ubuntu box ip into 'Server IP Address' box. Then press apply. Router will restart.

Billion-syslog

Extract logs & email them

Below just for information are the orginal /var/log/billion.log* permissions

ll billion.log*
-rw-r----- 1 root adm 79768 Jul 22 13:06 billion.log
-rw-r----- 1 root adm 53096 Jul 21 07:51 billion.log.1.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root adm 44947 Jul 14 07:19 billion.log.2.gz

Issue commands below to copy logs on your desktop then add read & write permission to be able to attach to an email

sudo cp /var/log/billion.log* ~/Desktop
sudo chmod a+rw billion.log*