# Logging through syslogd not working



## driesm (Sep 23, 2017)

Hello,

At the moment I'm trying to configure different services to log through syslog.

An entry located under /usr/local/etc/syslog.d/ which is default included in /etc/syslog.conf looks like this:

```
!openvpn
*.*     /var/log/openvpn.log
```

I also have a file in /usr/local/etc/newsyslog.conf.d/ with an entry like:

```
/var/log/openvpn.log    600     5       100     *       JC
```

Altough OpenVPN is not logging anything in openvpn.log it looks like this after a day:

```
Sep 22 18:31:25 vados newsyslog[86822]: logfile first created
```

Any Ideas? I have a similar configuration for isc-dhcpd server.
Which is also not logging anything with the above entries.


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## ShelLuser (Sep 23, 2017)

I remember having issues with OpenVPN logging myself, so I eventually resorted to using --log-append and specifying a dedicated logfile, then pointing newsyslog to the OpenVPN pidfile.

Have you tried using #!openvpn? If I read syslog.conf(5) correctly then the option where you only use an exclamation mark is merely there for compatibility purposes, the preferred way is with the hash character. So I can't help wonder if this could be of any influence.


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## driesm (Sep 23, 2017)

If you look at the default ppp entry in syslog.conf:


```
!ppp
*.*                                             /var/log/ppp.log

!*
include                                         /etc/syslog.d
include                                         /usr/local/etc/syslog.d
```

This should really indicate the #! isn't necessary right?
I tried your suggestion anyway tho with no luck :/.


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