Re: fetchmail and syslog

[furufuru@ccsr.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Ryo Furue)]

furufuru@ccsr.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Ryo Furue) wrote in message news:<2gfts-40c-7@gated-at.bofh.it>...
[...]
> When invoked with the --syslog option, fetchmail uses syslog:
> 
>        [...]  Messages  are  logged
>        with an id of fetchmail, the facility LOG_MAIL, and prior-
>        ities LOG_ERR, LOG_ALERT  or  LOG_INFO.
> 
> (from "man fetchmail").  And, my /etc/syslog.conf has
> 
>    auth,authpriv.*                 /var/log/auth.log
>    *.*;auth,authpriv.none          -/var/log/syslog
>    [...]
>    mail.*                          -/var/log/mail.log
>    [...]
>    mail.info                       -/var/log/mail.info
>    mail.warn                       -/var/log/mail.warn
>    mail.err                        /var/log/mail.err
> 
> (The full contents will be attached at the end of this message).
> 
> Non-error messages from fetchmail appear in /var/log/mail.info and
> mail.log .  That I like.  But, how can I prevent the same messages from
> appearing in /var/log/syslog ?
> 
> I think the "*.*" part for /var/log/syslog is catching the messages
> from the fetchmail.  But, seeing that the messages that appear in
> auth.log don't appear in syslog and guessing ';' means exclusion, I tried
> 
>    *.*;auth,authpriv.none,mail.*  /var/log/syslog
> 
> and restarted syslogd.  This didn't work.  Indeed, "man syslog.conf"
> doesn't say ';' means exclusion. . . .   I'm sure I'm missing something.

Finally I found a solution.  What you need is

    *.*;auth,authpriv.none;mail.none  /var/log/syslog

That is, "mail.none" is the key.  Well, I'm afraid I don't think this
grammar is well designed, and also I think the manpage could have been
clearer. It took three or four repeated readings of the manpage plus
some experimentation until I figured this out.  Perhaps, I guess most
people don't bother with syslogd and those who do already know enough
about it.

Cheers,
Ryo