[pve-devel] [PATCH manager] ui: node: system: avoid using 'Syslog'

[Esi Y]

Just a small random addition to the rabbithole of the term syslog and that it has been source of confusion since long.

There's yet another syslog, completely unrelated:

# man 2 syslog:

DESCRIPTION

       Note: Probably, you are looking for the C library function
       syslog(), which talks to syslogd(8); see syslog(3) for details.

       This page describes the kernel syslog() system call, which is
       used to control the kernel printk() buffer; the glibc wrapper
       function for the system call is called klogctl().



Accidentally nice record of what the purpose of syslog(3) originally was. And then some more:



HISTORY

       From the very start, people noted that it is unfortunate that a
       system call and a library routine of the same name are entirely
       different animals.



Interestingly, there is a switch --syslog in dmesg(1) that:

# man 1 dmesg

-S, --syslog
           Force dmesg to use the syslog(2) kernel interface to read
           kernel messages. The default is to use /dev/kmsg rather than
           syslog(2) since kernel 3.5.0.



That is that same /dev/kmsg that systemd-journald even reads the kernel messages from.



On Fri, Feb 16, 2024 at 10:22:27AM +0100, Fiona Ebner wrote:
> 
> 
> Am 16.02.24 um 10:01 schrieb Fabian Grünbichler:
> > 
> >> Fiona Ebner <f.ebner at proxmox.com> hat am 16.02.2024 09:29 CET geschrieben:
> >> Am 15.02.24 um 19:20 schrieb Dietmar Maurer:
> >>>> The information gathered by the API call comes from the systemd
> >>>> journal. While 'Syslog' could be interpreted as a shorthand for
> >>>> "System Log", it's better to be explicit to avoid any confusion.
> >>>
> >>>> -		title: 'Syslog',
> >>>> +		title: gettext('System Log'),
> >>>
> >>> From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syslog
> >>>
> >>>> In computing, syslog /ˈsɪslɒɡ/ is a standard for message logging.
> >>>
> >>
> >> As discussed off-list with Dietmar, the argument is that the messages
> >> are exactly those that are recorded via the syslog standard/mechanism.
> >> So "Syslog" is more precise in that sense, because "System Log" doesn't
> >> capture that fact and I'm retracting my patch.
> > 
> > while I don't mind (at all!) that that part of the UI/API is labelled syslog (I don't think it's hard to understand that it gives you the system logs of that node, and "syslog" is a bit like "Kleenex" in that regard ;)) - I do have to disagree here ;) journald does a lot more than just collecting syslog(3) messages - it also collects stdout/stderr of systemd-managed services (unless configured in a non-default fashion), messages explicitly sent to it over its own interface (like those by systemd ;)), and messages from the kernel (like dmesg), including the audit subsystem..
> 
> Oh right, so "Syslog" is not actually more precise. Please consider the
> patch open again. Of course, we could alternatively use "Systemd
> Journal" without gettext().
> 
> 
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