[mythtv-users] --logfile vs. --logpath

[Thomas Mashos]

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 11:22 AM, Michael T. Dean
<mtdean at thirdcontact.com> wrote:
> On 05/21/2012 01:27 PM, Stephan Seitz wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 12:43:23PM -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>>>
>>> You do realize you can easily find the current log file with something
>>> like:
>>> ls -t /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend-*.log | head -n1
>>> and could even have your mythbackend/mythfrontend start script create a
>>> link with a name like /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log using information
>>> obtained that way.
>>
>>
>> Of course, we will certainly find other complicated hacks to get standard
>> behaviour.
>>
>>>> Piping the log output through syslog to get proper logfile names is only
>>>> a workaround for a buggy software.
>>>
>>> Using the definition of buggy = something I don't understand/like?
>>
>>
>> Buggy = something that doesn’t follow the good old unix way.
>
>
> MythTV is different from many/most other *nix apps in that there are often
> multiple instances of applications running--and logging
> information--concurrently. That said, the only "good old unix way" of
> logging I know of is, in fact, syslog--everything else is pretty much
> non-standard, application-specific logging practices (where the vast
> majority of those applications have only one instance or an application to
> worry about, too).
>
>
>>> Why not just use syslog? The syslog logging is the approach we've
>>
>>
>> Well, for now I’m using syslog according to your nice examples you quoted.
>> It is working but I still consider it a workaround, especially since
>> everything was right before 0.25.
>>
>> This is bad for distributions as well. How should mythtv be packaged? With
>> logpath and then having a directory with lots of confusing files? With
>> syslog and then try to figure out which facility is not used and how to
>> configure the different log daemons (Debian has three at least)?
>
>
> FWIW, you don't need an unused log facility with the simple configuration
> (which I just moved to a separate page so it's easier to quote/easier to
> distinguish as separate).
>
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Simple_rsyslog_Configuration
>
> As for dealing with multiple syslog implementations, I'd suppose packagers
> could handle it as they do for other syslog-using applications. (That said,
> I know nothing of packaging, but I do know of many applications that use
> syslog.)
>
>
> Mike
>
>
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FWIW, that is pretty much exactly what we ship.

rsyslog configuration (notice we don't need to look for an open facility)
https://github.com/MythTV/packaging/blob/master/deb/debian/40-mythtv.conf

logrotate configuration for the backend
https://github.com/MythTV/packaging/blob/master/deb/debian/mythtv-backend.logrotate

Thanks,

Thomas Mashos