Re: /var/log/messages

[Michael Beattie <mickyb@es.co.nz>]

On Thu, 27 Aug 1998, Stefan Frank wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 26, 1998 at 08:29:33PM -0500, servis@purdue.edu wrote:
> 
> > *- Greg Starkes wrote about "/var/log/messages"
> > | 
> > | When I watch /var/log/messages i see the following
> > | 
> > | Aug 26 18:51:45 greyhawk -- MARK --
> > | Aug 26 19:11:45 greyhawk -- MARK --
> > | Aug 26 19:31:45 greyhawk -- MARK --
> > | <snip>
> > | Aug 26 21:31:45 greyhawk -- MARK --
> > | Aug 26 22:11:45 greyhawk -- MARK --
> > | Aug 26 22:31:45 greyhawk -- MARK --
> > | <ad nausiem>
> > | 
> > | As you can see, this happens every 20 minutes. What is doing this? It is a
> > | pain when I am tailing this file.
> > | 
> > 
> > [snip]
> > 
> > It lets you know the machine is alive and kicking, especially for remote
> > monitoring.
> > 
> 
> With linux i learn something new every day. I was wondering about those
> strange MARK messages too. But it doesn't look very dangerous so i didn't
> cared. Good to know this linux machine has a heartbeat too ;-)

I find it funny... On the list back when hamm started in a sort of
infancy.. there were lots of comments about these annoying '-- MARK --'
messages in their logfiles. As was said back then, it's a feature of
syslogd that has always been there, but never worked until now.. Kinda
funny how when something that finally works is complained about. Reminds
me of Windows. Ewww. I'll shut up now.
 
> BTW, does anybody know how to check in a bash script, wheter a PPP
> connection is already up ? The /var/run/ppp0.pid file is already created
> when the modem is still dialing the phone number.

I can usually tell by my HDD working... you could add a script in
/etc/ppp/ip-up.d/ to play a sound for you or something.. I cant help
otherwise.. 

                       Michael Beattie (mickyb@es.co.nz)

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