systems messages no longer written to /var/log/messages

[ivanachukapawn]

On a Linux host the /var/log/messages file inexplicably ends on Oct 6th (this being October 20th).

I ran a ps to get a clue with this result:

twasdr12:/sbin # ps aux|grep [sk]*logd
root 4916 0.0 0.0 2948 680 ? Ss Aug22 0:00 /sbin/klogd -c 1 -x -x
root 19345 0.0 0.0 3936 796 pts/0 S+ 09:58 0:00 grep klogd


I guess that I'm missing a daemon - ( syslogd ) - but don't know why that should be - what do you recommend to fix this problem (should I reboot | start the daemon | or something else ).

[atreyu]

I'd go with restarting the syslog daemon. I haven't used SUSE in a while, so I don't remember the daemon name, but it is usually something like

/etc/init.d/rsyslog restart

or maybe syslog instead of rsyslog. Just look for it in that init dir.

[Irithori]

Starting the daemon should do it.

On another note: the processmonitoring of a nagios/xymon/munin/<whatever> can alarm you, if critical services (sshd, ntpd, (r)syslog, etc) are no longer running.

[jippie]

In such cases always start by checking your filesystems:

$ df -h /var/log/ # check for free space
$ df -hi /var/log/ # check for free inodes