+++
title = "filter program logs in freebsd syslog"
date = "2013-02-19T08:30:37+00:00"
author = "Gibheer"
draft = false
+++

I had the need to filter logs from different programs into different places - in this case the postgres and nginx logs. The man page of `syslog.conf` describes it pretty good, but misses some examples to make it more clear. So here is how I configured it, to make it easier.

First, I edited the `syslog.conf`

    # filter everything apart from postgres and nginx
    !-postgres,nginx
    *.err;kern.warning;auth.notice;mail.crit    /dev/console
    # and all the other stuff

    # filter only postgres
    !postgres
    *.*        /var/log/postgresql.log

    # filter only nginx
    !nginx
    *.*        /var/log/nginx.log

The next step is to setup the log rotate. This happens in `/etc/newsyslog.conf`. The man page is very helpful, so if you want to adjust something, take a peek into it.

    # postgresql                                                                                                                                                                                  
    /var/log/postgresql.log     640  5     100  * JC                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                                                              
    # nginx                                                                                                                                                                                       
    /var/log/nginx.log      640  5     100  * JC

And that is all. If you want to add more program filtes, you have to define them in the `syslog.conf` as *notfilter* and *filter* and add the rotate to `newsyslog.conf`.