RE: [Syslog] -syslog-tc-mib Facilities

["Rainer Gerhards" <rgerhards at hq.adiscon.com>]

> > The discussion came up about the use of the Facilities in the
> > -syslog-tc-mib document; are they normative or non-normative.  David
> and
> > I discussed this and have concluded that they are normative to the
> > version of the protocol that we are now discussing.  That may be
> changed
> > in the future but we can't predict that.  However, the fact remains
> that
> > the Facility really can't always pinpoint the source of the content
> of
> > the message.
> Then on page 5 of syslogMIB-TC the statement
>   "Facility and Severity values are not normative but often used."
> will need to be deleted - is that correct ?

Yes, that would need to be deleted. However, we should then stick with
only the facilities that are used on all platforms. 

              ntp             (12),-- NTP subsystem messages
              logAudit        (13),-- log audit messages
              logAlert        (14),-- log alert messages
              cron2           (15),-- clock daemon messages

Are note universal. See this excerpt from the current glibc syslog.h:

###
/* facility codes */
#define	LOG_KERN	(0<<3)	/* kernel messages */
#define	LOG_USER	(1<<3)	/* random user-level messages */
#define	LOG_MAIL	(2<<3)	/* mail system */
#define	LOG_DAEMON	(3<<3)	/* system daemons */
#define	LOG_AUTH	(4<<3)	/* security/authorization messages */
#define	LOG_SYSLOG	(5<<3)	/* messages generated internally by
syslogd */
#define	LOG_LPR		(6<<3)	/* line printer subsystem */
#define	LOG_NEWS	(7<<3)	/* network news subsystem */
#define	LOG_UUCP	(8<<3)	/* UUCP subsystem */
#define	LOG_CRON	(9<<3)	/* clock daemon */
#define	LOG_AUTHPRIV	(10<<3)	/* security/authorization messages
(private) */
#define	LOG_FTP		(11<<3)	/* ftp daemon */

	/* other codes through 15 reserved for system use */
#define	LOG_LOCAL0	(16<<3)	/* reserved for local use */
#define	LOG_LOCAL1	(17<<3)	/* reserved for local use */
#define	LOG_LOCAL2	(18<<3)	/* reserved for local use */
#define	LOG_LOCAL3	(19<<3)	/* reserved for local use */
#define	LOG_LOCAL4	(20<<3)	/* reserved for local use */
#define	LOG_LOCAL5	(21<<3)	/* reserved for local use */
#define	LOG_LOCAL6	(22<<3)	/* reserved for local use */
#define	LOG_LOCAL7	(23<<3)	/* reserved for local use */
###

When we claim to create normative names for facilities, we should not
cause backward compatibility problems for those facilities that are not
even mentioned in the relevant system header files. Claiming them would
essentially eat up the remaining four extension possibilities. For
example, I'd much more prefer to have a LOG_HTTP in the future than to
have a LOG_CRON2...

Rainer

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