Log Event To SysLog Alert

General information

SysLog is a special Unix daemon (an analog of Windows services) for handling logging tasks on Unix systems. Also, there are some free syslog implementations for the Win32 platform. On a local area network you can configure a central log server to keep all the important information on one machine using the syslog server. The Network Eagle application allows you to send events to the syslog daemon with a wide range of parameters.

Though the syslog server can work with either TCP or UDP connections, 99% of syslog users run it as a UDP server. The Network Eagle syslog client supports only the UDP protocol. Note that the UDP protocol does not guarantee that the message will be delivered to the target host. It is protocol-specific. So if your network is overloaded, some UDP packets can be missed because their timeout expires and some log entries in the syslog files can be missed. But chances for that are extremely low on local area networks. However, if you configure this type of alert to work via the Internet you should keep it in your mind.

You can use the message format feature in the Message field. Using the message format feature, you can insert some additional dynamic information available after the last service check into your log message. It can be the error message, the service status and so on. To read more about format message patterns, click here.

A few words about the meaning of facility and severity. As defined in the Unix manual for syslog:

Facility is used to specify what type of program should log the message. This lets the configuration file specify that messages from different facilities are handled differently.

Log level determines the importance of the message. It also lets the system administrator configure the syslog daemon to handle log messages differently.

Alert Settings

Besides the standard alert settings, the following settings are available:

• Message - Specify the log message in this field. You can use message formatting patterns to insert additional information about a particular check into the log message.
• Down Facility - Choose a syslog facility for fail events.
• Down Level - Choose a syslog level for fail events.
• Up Facility - Choose a syslog facility for backup events.
• Up Level - Choose a syslog level for backup events.
• SysLog Server - Enter the syslog server address.
• SysLog Server Port - Specify the syslog server UDP port.