From owner-freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 7 08:50:03 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-bugs@hub.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E57B3106569D for ; Tue, 7 Oct 2008 08:50:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gnats@FreeBSD.org) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (freefall.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::28]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D2BDE8FC16 for ; Tue, 7 Oct 2008 08:50:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gnats@FreeBSD.org) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (gnats@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id m978o3Px078714 for ; Tue, 7 Oct 2008 08:50:03 GMT (envelope-from gnats@freefall.freebsd.org) Received: (from gnats@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.14.2/8.14.1/Submit) id m978o3JH078708; Tue, 7 Oct 2008 08:50:03 GMT (envelope-from gnats) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 08:50:03 GMT Message-Id: <200810070850.m978o3JH078708@freefall.freebsd.org> To: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org From: David Malone Cc: Subject: Re: conf/100616: [patch] syslog.conf: lines after exclamation point ignored X-BeenThere: freebsd-bugs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: David Malone List-Id: Bug reports List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:50:04 -0000 The following reply was made to PR conf/100616; it has been noted by GNATS. From: David Malone To: Royce Williams Cc: David Malone , bug-followup@FreeBSD.org, dwmalone@maths.tcd.ie Subject: Re: conf/100616: [patch] syslog.conf: lines after exclamation point ignored Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:42:50 +0100 > The syslog.conf manpage says that respecting '#!' is to maintain > compatibility with a previous version of syslog. Looking back at > syslog.conf and syslogd.c, it looks like support for this was added > in rev 1.3 back in December 1994, but I don't see anything that shows > when the previous version of syslog was replaced. I think the idea is that you could share a syslog.conf between machines, some of which support the "#!" notation and some of which don't. For example, we used to share a syslog.conf between FreeBSD and SunOS machines. > +# Commenting out program specifications will not work as expected. > +# For backwards compatibility with the previous syslog, lines > +# starting with '#!' have a purpose and are NOT commented out. > +# See 'program specification' in the syslog.conf(5) manpage. Something like this would be good... > ... or something less chatty. Is sending this to you sufficient, or > should I add it to the PR? Personally, I think snappier would be better I think - how about: # NB: To comment out lines starting with a "!" use "##" - see syslog.conf(5). > Now about the possible bug. Even if commenting out the !startslip > doesn't really comment it out, but instead triggers this legacy > support, why would all subsequent unrelated configuration lines get > ignored? From my testing, any lines added after the example '!' lines > are ignored entirely. Surely that's not part of the functionality? > Or am I missing something? Are you able to recreate the symptom that > I'm seeing, as described in the PR? The program specification (or a host specification) applies to all subsequent lines, until it is reset. To reset it, you need to have a line that says: !* or the equivelent "#!*". This is explained in the man page below in the paragraph after host specifications, but we've had several people confused about it, so I suspect the man page is not clear enough. If you have an idea bout how to make it clearer, let me know! David.