Rsyslog - what is it?
Rsyslog is a rocket-fast system for log processing.
It offers high-performance, great security features and a modular design. While it started as a regular syslogd, rsyslog has evolved into a kind of swiss army knife of logging, being able to accept inputs from a wide variety of sources, transform them, and output to the results to diverse destinations.
Rsyslog can deliver over one million messages per second to local destinations when limited processing is applied (based on v7, December 2013). Even with remote destinations and more elaborate processing the performance is usually considered "stunning".
Mailing List
http://lists.adiscon.net/mailman/listinfo/rsyslog
Installing rsyslog
Most distributions carry rsyslog in their repository. So you usually just need to use the package manager to install it. Note that on non-systemd systems (most notably Ubuntu), rsyslog usually is already installed.
Project-Provided Packages
Unfortunately, distributions often do not catch up with the pace of rsyslog development and as such only offer old versions. To solve that problem, we have created packages for current versions ourselves.
They are available for:
- RPM-based systems: http://www.rsyslog.com/rhelcentos-rpms/
- Ubuntu: http://www.rsyslog.com/ubuntu-repository/
- Debian: http://www.rsyslog.com/debian-repository/
Building from Source
Follow the instructions at: http://www.rsyslog.com/doc/build_from_repo.html
Reporting Bugs
Talk to the mailing list if you think something is a bug. Often, it's just a matter of doing some config trickery.
File bugs at: https://github.com/rsyslog/rsyslog/issues
How to Contribute
Contributions to rsyslog are very welcome. Fork and send us your Pull Requests.
For more information about contributing, see the CONTRIBUTING file.
Note that it is esay to add output plugins using languages like Python or Perl. So if you need to connect to a system which is not yet supported, you can easily do so via an external plugin. For more information see the README file in the external plugin directory.
Documentation
The main rsyslog documentation is available in HTML format. To read it, point your web browser to ./doc/manual.html. Alternatively, you can view the documentation for the most recent rsyslog version online at: http://www.rsyslog.com/doc
Project Philosophy
We are an open source project in all aspects and very open to outside feedback and contribution. We base our work on standards and try to solve all real-world needs (of course, we occasionally fail tackeling actually all needs ;)). While the project is primarily sponsored by Adiscon, technical development is independent from company goals and most decisions are solely based on mailing list discussion results. There is an active commuity around rsyslog.
There is no such thing like being an official member of the rsyslog team. The closest to that is being subscribed to the mailing list: http://lists.adiscon.net/mailman/listinfo/rsyslog
This method of open discussions is modelled after the IETF process, which is probably the best-known and most successive collaborative standards body.
Project Funding
Rsyslog's main sponsor Adiscon tries to fund rsyslog by selling custom development and support contracts. Adiscon does NOT license rsyslog under a commercial license (this is simply impossible for anyone due to rsyslog's license structure).
Any third party is obviously also free to offer custom development, support and rsyslog consulting. We gladly merge results of such third-party work into the main repository (assuming it matches the few essential things written down in our contribution policy).