debug log [was Re: freeradius ippool issue]

[Josip Rodin]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 12:16:08PM +0200, Alan DeKok wrote:
> Josip Rodin wrote:
> > It looks to me that it would be a good idea to have a default
> > /var/log/freeradius/debug.log where the daemon would write the output
> > normally found with -X. Plus with timestamps.
> 
>   That is very, very, expensive, and will slow the server down a lot.
> But yes, the idea is good.
> 
> > That way, all new users already have a ready instance of debugging
> > information, and you can rely on that. And after they go past the initial
> > troubles, they can turn it off with an option.
> 
>   The latest CVS (or git) has code that can configurably enable, or
> disable, debug logging on the fly.  The debug logs can be directed to
> different locations.
> 
>   i.e. you can turn on debug logs ONLY for packets being sent to one
> home server, and put those logs into a special file.
> 
>   That *still* won't solve the problem of people not following
> instructions, though.

Yeah. At least you can try to streamline the debugging process, so that
the instructions become very easy :) It's more straightforward to tell people
"send us your log file which is right over there" than to tell them "stop
the server, start it manually with -X, copy&paste some particular gobs of
text, save it into a text file, send that".

BTW, while we're on the topic - Navis RADIUS has the option of having log
files be automatically switched based on timestamps. In other words, if you
set a log file to be 'TimeFile', and set attributes 'FormatTimestamp=TRUE',
'Prefix=/var/log/foo/bar-', 'Mode=DAILY', and then it creates the log files
named /var/log/foo/bar-20080718, and automatically moves on as necessary.

That sounds like a reasonably useful facility for debugging logs - makes
the rotation and lookups a bit smarter than the usual fodder created by
logrotate. And it's also similar to how radacct/detail files are written.

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