| >The mess of log files below /var/log has been a problem for a long time. How so? It follows the *NIX "everything is a file" philosophy, so they can easily be processed by other utilities that everybody already knows. >The format is not descriptive enough You mean the standard filepath? /var/log/(daemon name). You mean the actual textual format of a syslog message? Timestamp, daemon, facility.severity, message. If your messages are useless, isn't that a function of what's creating them, rather than what's capturing them? What additional data do you want that you're not seeing? >no timezone information, and yet the times are in local timezone What other timezone should they be in? Personally I think it's easier to look at the system clock (actually, I usually don't even have to do that, since I have a clock in the corner of my screen session) and make a mental note what timezone you're in rather than add two bytes to every message. >Please don't hold on /var/log/messages just because it has been like that for ages. That should not be the justification for it existing. It's the thing that wants to change the way it's always been done that has to justify itself, not the other way around. What does the systemd journal give us that's worth throwing out decades of knowledge and muscle memory? Configuring syslog isn't exactly a great feat of skill either.. pick your favorite daemon, it still follows the general format of (messages from this thing) (with this characteristic) (go here) |
That's how modern systems are developed. That's all the justification you need, really. Define the use cases you and your CADT buddies considered as "modern" and everything else as "legacy", then you can say "That worked fine in the 1970s, but modern systems don't work like that anymore."