How to analyse varlog messages?

[luckystrings]

Hi All,

Could anybody help me in analysing and understanding /var/log/messages file.

Is there any references availble for analysing these log file ??

Any help will be greatly appreciated..

Thanks and regards,
Lucky !

[rong]

To understand everything in /var/log/messages you would need a solid understanding of hardware, networking and programming. I know of no single reference on dealing with just this one file. Short of studying books about linux/server administration, networking, etc. perhaps a good approach would be to pick just a few lines at a time from the message file and putting them in google search and then follow the trail.

[likwid]

You kind of just read it.. is there a message in particular that's confusing you ?

[luckystrings]

You kind of just read it.. is there a message in particular that's confusing you ?

Hey Likwid,
Thank u for ur response.. i wuz juz curious abt the log files.. coz last week I helped one of my friend in sortin out an issue with the ftp service (vsftpd).. i read the last few lines of the log file and somehow came to a conclusion tht some socket was busy and wasnt allowing ftp access.. so we just stopped and restarted the vsftpd service which solved the prob..

that was interesting and I thought i'll just go ahead and find some time learnin to analyse the logs..

@RONG !!

Hey Rong..
thank you for ur Response too.. i;ll try downloadin some books (linux admin) online .. lemme try learnin some stuffs..
its really Interestin'

thanks and Regards guys !!

Lucky !

[likwid]

Yes you see a lot of it is self explanatory if you know about computers and linux in general.