/var/log/messages not updating in CentOS

Installing, Configuring, Troubleshooting server daemons such as Web and Mail
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george_john
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Joined: 2018/03/01 06:50:16

/var/log/messages not updating in CentOS

Post by george_john » 2018/03/01 06:58:14

Hi, I've a busy CentOS 5.9 server which is hosting an IoT application server and Oracle database. The /var/log/messages is not logging any normal messages except some logs from Nagios nrpe plugin (This server being monitored by Nagios core).

nrpe[6565]: Error: Request packet type/version was invalid!
nrpe[6565]: Client request was invalid, bailing out...

when i restart any service (eg: crond, cups, sendmail, etc..), it is NOT captured in /var/log/messages.

But when i use logger command, it is captured,

# logger -i "hello"
/var/log/messages >> Mar 1 01:26:35 server01 root[7638]: hello

Here are my rsyslog settings,

# Log anything (except mail) of level info or higher.
# Don't log private authentication messages!
*.info;mail.none;authpriv.none;cron.none /var/log/messages


# lsof /var/log/messages
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
rsyslogd 30429 root 3w REG 253,0 193500 5304282 /var/log/messages

Any idea what is gone wrong here?

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TrevorH
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Location: Brighton, UK

Re: /var/log/messages not updating in CentOS

Post by TrevorH » 2018/03/01 10:19:11

No idea what's wrong but CentOS 5.9 is two whole point releases behind the latest (and last) version. You should adjust your yum configs to point to the archived CentOS 5 yum repos which are now hosted on vault.centos.org and update to 5.11. Once that's done, start making urgent plans to migrate to a supported version of CentOS since CentOS 5 went End Of Life nearly one year ago and there will be no more patches for it ever. This means that you are already vulnerable to all the exploits that have been discovered in the last year including both Meltdown and Spectre and any other nasties that have been discovered since March 31st 2017.

CentOS 5 is End of Life and should no longer be used. It's unsafe and will receive no more updates at all.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

george_john
Posts: 2
Joined: 2018/03/01 06:50:16

Re: /var/log/messages not updating in CentOS

Post by george_john » 2018/03/02 05:32:40

Thanks. We are planning to upgrade to CentOS 6 or 7.

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