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syslog facility and conserver

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ppacheco at genesyslab

Nov 20, 2006, 4:57 PM

Post #1 of 4 (1815 views)
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syslog facility and conserver

Conserver users,

I am about to configure Conserver 8.1.14 on Solaris. I will be using it
to control the ports on several Cyclades TS2000's. Currently we are
using conserver 7.x on FreeBSD, which I did not setup.

I am interested in configuring conserver to log messages from console
clients which write to the console. As I understand it, conserver holds
open the port of any device in the configuration file. Does it also
listen on these ports, and can it write output to syslog? If so, what
are the configuration parameters?

I hate to ask questions to which the answers are easily available in the
MAN pages, but I could not easily find these answers and the boss awaits
results. I even looked over my accumulation of email from
users [at] conserver with no luck.

Thanks for your help.

Phillip Pacheco

WIS-UNIX

Genesys

ppacheco at genesyslab

Nov 20, 2006, 5:10 PM

Post #2 of 4 (1726 views)
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RE: syslog facility and conserver [In reply to]

Ok, so I acted in haste. Just after sending this message I found what I think is the answer. I searched for /syslog in the man page without result. But if I searched for log, I would have found this:

# man conserver

Reformatting page. Please Wait... done

conserver CONSERVER(8)

NAME

conserver - console server daemon

...

-u Send unloved console output to conserver's

stdout (which, in daemon mode, is redirected to

the logfile). This applies to all consoles to

which no user is attached, independent of

whether logging of individual consoles is

enabled via conserver.cf entries.

-Ulogfile Copy all console data to the ``unified'' log-

file. The output is the same as the -u output,

but all consoles, not just those without a user,

are logged. Each line of output is prefixed

with the console name. If a user is attached

read/write, a `*' is appended to the console

name, to allow log watching utilites to ignore

potential user-introduced alarms.

...

Phil

________________________________

From: users-bounces [at] conserver [mailto:users-bounces [at] conserver] On Behalf Of Phillip Pacheco
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 4:58 PM
To: users [at] conserver
Subject: syslog facility and conserver

Conserver users,

I am about to configure Conserver 8.1.14 on Solaris. I will be using it to control the ports on several Cyclades TS2000's. Currently we are using conserver 7.x on FreeBSD, which I did not setup.

I am interested in configuring conserver to log messages from console clients which write to the console. As I understand it, conserver holds open the port of any device in the configuration file. Does it also listen on these ports, and can it write output to syslog? If so, what are the configuration parameters?

I hate to ask questions to which the answers are easily available in the MAN pages, but I could not easily find these answers and the boss awaits results. I even looked over my accumulation of email from users [at] conserver with no luck.

Thanks for your help.

Phillip Pacheco

WIS-UNIX

Genesys

woods at weird

Nov 29, 2006, 4:14 PM

Post #3 of 4 (1722 views)
Permalink

Re: syslog facility and conserver [In reply to]

At Mon, 20 Nov 2006 16:57:50 -0800,
Phillip Pacheco wrote:
>
> I am about to configure Conserver 8.1.14 on Solaris. I will be using it
> to control the ports on several Cyclades TS2000's. Currently we are
> using conserver 7.x on FreeBSD, which I did not setup.

I've finally recently converted to conserver-8 on my home network too.
I use some DECserver units to provide the serial ports.

In conserver-8.x the logging can be set by default for each console
port with a "default" block in the conserver.cf file:

#
# The character '&' in logfile names are substituted with the console
# name. Any logfile name that doesn't begin with a '/' has LOGDIR
# prepended to it. So, most consoles will just have a '&' as the logfile
# name which causes /var/consoles/<consolename> to be used.
#
default * {
logfile /var/log/consoles/&;
timestamp 1lab;
}

Previously in older versions that was done in the 4'th field of the
conserver.cf file, with perhaps a default LOGDIR and TIMESTAMP entry to
set some common parameters for logging.

I'll paste a copy of my whole new conserver.cf file here just for
general reference. I had some difficulty getting the new chat feature
working so that I could have conserver automatically login to my
terminal servers, plus some of the other features were not well enough
documented for me to figure out in my haste and with my conserver-7
mindset and there weren't any good comprehensive examples easily found
with google to accomplish all of what I wanted. (And the undocumented
conserverconvert program was pretty much useless to me.)

I must say I'm quite pleased with the new release, except for the fact
that it is WAY too anal about requiring SSL links (and maybe for the
fact it wouldn't ignore the trailing colon in my old conserver.passwd
files :-)). I'm considering hacking the SSL code back out of it (with a
compile-time option, of course, if that's not already possible). I
can't think of any situation where I would ever use conserver and could
ever even conceive of needing encryption within it. It's just a
terrible waste of CPU (that I don't have enough of on some older
clients) and doesn't buy me any security whatsoever, and never can. I
think I already have all the security I need directly at the network
layer wherever it is needed. (And I need network layer security anyway
for the telnet connections to the terminal servers -- protecting
conserver connections is pointless if the terminal server connections
are wide open to attack.)

--
Greg A. Woods

H:+1 416 218-0098 W:+1 416 489-5852 x122 VE3TCP RoboHack <woods [at] robohack>
Planix, Inc. <woods [at] planix> Secrets of the Weird <woods [at] weird>

Attachments:

conserver-stuff.shar (3.84 KB)

bryan at conserver

Nov 29, 2006, 5:41 PM

Post #4 of 4 (1713 views)
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Re: syslog facility and conserver [In reply to]

On Wed, Nov 29, 2006 at 07:14:25PM -0500, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> files :-)). I'm considering hacking the SSL code back out of it (with a
> compile-time option, of course, if that's not already possible). I

'configure --without-openssl' should prevent the SSL bits from getting
inserted (since it try's to auto-detect it and use it)...

Bryan
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