When it comes to Syslog messages in Linux it’s important to know that they are handled by two services:
systemd-journald daemon: Gathers all the messages from the kernel including boot processes, error of daemons, standard outputs, and also forward some messages to Rsyslog service.rsyslog service: Sorting messages by priority and type and providing logs in the/var/logdirectories. Here I’m going to list all types of syslog messages and where you can find them.
Prerequisites
- Linux bash environment
Subdirectories stored by the Syslog Messages
There are different subdirectories stored by the syslog messages depending on what kind of messages and information you need:
/var/log/messages: Contains all kind of syslog messages except the below ones./var/log/secure: Security and auth related messages and errors only./var/log/maillog: Provides mail server based messages and errors./var/log/cron: Stores logs messages and errors for scheduled cron jobs which are periodically executed./var/log/boot.log: All kinds of logs related to the system startup.
Conclusion
If you have any specific concerns or questions for all these different kinds of syslog messages don’t hesitate to put a comment below. On a side note, follow our official channel on Telegram.