diff options
author | David Oberhollenzer <david.oberhollenzer@tele2.at> | 2018-08-22 00:43:11 +0200 |
---|---|---|
committer | David Oberhollenzer <david.oberhollenzer@tele2.at> | 2018-08-28 14:25:28 +0200 |
commit | 0ed964c8a55bbcb94108798e415e31b470789e2a (patch) | |
tree | 42eec0f313a205b2d5365a5541900ecff29ed8a1 /docs/usyslogd.md | |
parent | 066efaa33e7641d378ac4d8a1419a525df6f70d2 (diff) |
Cleanup and update documentation
Signed-off-by: David Oberhollenzer <david.oberhollenzer@tele2.at>
Diffstat (limited to 'docs/usyslogd.md')
-rw-r--r-- | docs/usyslogd.md | 94 |
1 files changed, 94 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/docs/usyslogd.md b/docs/usyslogd.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96f5755 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/usyslogd.md @@ -0,0 +1,94 @@ +# Syslogd Implementation + +A tiny syslogd implementation `usyslogd` is provided as part of this package. + +It opens a socket in `/dev/log`, processes syslog messages and forwards the +parsed message to a modular backend interface. + +Currently, there is only one implementation of the backend interface that dumps +the log messages into files in the processes working directory (by default +`/var/log`). + +A simple log rotation scheme has been implemented. + + +## Security Considerations + +By default, the daemon switches its working directory to `/var/log`. The +directory is created if it doesn't exist and the daemon always tries to +change its mode to one that doesn't allow other users (except group members) +to access the directory. + +If told to so on the command line, the daemon chroots to the log directory. + +By default, the daemon then tries to drop privileges by switching to user and +group named `syslogd` if they exist (any other user or group can be specified +on the command line; doing so causes syslogd to fail if they don't exist). + + +On a system that hosts accounts for multiple users that may be more or less +trusted, one may consider only giving system services access to the syslog +socket and not allowing regular users. Otherwise, a user may flood the syslog +daemon with messages, possibly leading to resource starvation, or (in the case +of size limited log rotation outlined below) to the loss of otherwise critical +log messages. Since this is not the primary target of the Pygos system, such +a mechanism is not yet implemented. + +In case of a system where only daemons are running, the above mentioned +security measure is useless. If a remote attacker manages to get regular user +privileges, you already have a different, much greater problem. Also, a remote +attacker would have to compromise a local daemon that already has special +access to the syslog socket, which is again your least concern in this +scenario. + + +## Logrotation + +The backend can be configured to do log rotation in a continuous fashion (i.e. +in a way that log messages aren't lost), or in a way where it drops old +messages. Furthermore, the backend can be configured to automatically do a log +rotation if a certain size threshold is hit. + +If the `usyslogd` receives a `SIGHUP`, it tells the backend to do log rotation. + +In the case of the size threshold, the backend is expected to do the rotation +on its own if the predetermined limit is hit. + + +## File Based Backend + +The file based backend writes log messages to files in the current working +directory (by default `/var/log`), named either after the ident string (if +specified) or the facility name. + +Log messages are prefixed with an ISO 8601 time stamp, optionally the facility +name (unless part of the file name), the log level and the senders PID. Each +of those fields is enclosed in brackets. + +Log rotation in a continuous fashion means renaming the existing log file to +one suffixed with the current time stamp. Overwriting old messages renaming +the log file by appending a constant `.1` suffix. + + +## Default Configuration + +The default service configuration limits the log file size to 8 KiB and +configures the daemon to overwrite old messages when rotating log files, +effectively limiting the amount of log data to 16 KiB per source or facility. + +The intended use case in the Pygos system is logging to a ramdisk without +exhausting available memory. + + +## Possible Future Directions + +In the near term future, the daemon probably requires more fine grained control +over logging such as setting a minimum log level or a way to configure limits +per facility or service. + +In the medium term future, extended resource control using c-groups might be +a possibility. + +Future directions may include adding other backends, such as forwarding the +log messages to a central server, for instance using syslog over UDP/TCP or +using the front end of some time series database. |