What Is a Syslog Server?(blog.greencloudvps.com)
29 pointsby theanonymousone3 hours ago5 comments
  • brianjlogan3 hours ago
    > A syslog server is a foundational tool for centralized log management in modern IT environments

    I'd very much recommend a more modern log stack than a traditional syslog server.

    There are many articles covering the limitations of Syslog. Better to replace that component by utilities like OpenTelemetry and JSON structured logging.

    You can run a single binary version of Loki https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/get-started/deployment-...

    Or use something like the Otel collector to send your logs to a remote host.

    I have done my fair share of rsyslog and syslog-ng.

    I would not say a "Syslog" server belongs in a modern stack.

    • skullone3 hours ago
      I disagree. I work in a large environment, and rsyslog is where 90% of data goes to first. It can keep up with millions of messages per second, route them to higher order services for indexing (bigquery, splunk, elastic etc etc). Has rules engines, encryption, supports multiple protocols and obviously has TLS too. You can surely augment with otel and such where you can, but syslog is uhhhh, deployed in so many places that it would make an average app developer's head spin when all they're used to is application logging in a controlled structured place in their silo.
      • shmoean hour ago
        Even SC4S, splunk's docker appliance for turnkey syslog uses rsyslogd.

        Edit: being pedantic -- it's syslog-ng actually.

        • skullone35 minutes ago
          And the number of k8s envs that log stdout through them into.... more rsyslog, it's truly everywhere. Plus all the sidecar containers deployed that shuffle app logs, lots of syslog there, its so lightweight and simple and reliable. I watch all the gyrations people go through to achieve the same result, and it's always changing, hurts my brain thinking how much time they waste
    • aftbit28 minutes ago
      Disagree. JSON logging is fine, but make it line based and just log to a syslog server. Then I can route it wherever I want (or to multiple places) including to a simple file on a disk that I can actually inspect, rather than having to use an API.
    • 1970-01-012 hours ago
      The problem with modern stuff is it doesn't do the very basics. Sometimes I really do want UDP dumping out into a file on another part of the network. The modern setups forget how to do this.
      • edoceoan hour ago
        I saw one place that had the logs going into a database. On the same connection as the app-data. So, when the transaction failed, the logs also didn't get written. LMAO. I made them do syslog in their code, which for some of the devs was a mind-blowing. They were amazed at that we could just barf text quick&lightweight over UDP.
    • lokar2 hours ago
      Yeah, for a modern large scale distributed system both the client api and implementations are pretty bad.
  • ang_cirean hour ago
    An intro article on syslog servers in the year of our Lord 2026?

    Did you know you can replace your noSQL db with VSAM too (honestly better than mongo).

    • nailer42 minutes ago
      Mongo stopped having major data loss issues after a decade - my understanding is it's pretty stable now. You might hate the company for beta testing on your data but that's a separate issue.
  • 3 hours ago
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  • IronWolve3 hours ago
    We moved to splunk now and mostly happy with it, mix of windows/linux/etc logs.

    But with AI, I can see opensource alternatives getting better.

    • unethical_ban33 minutes ago
      I've never been in the sales room. I've heard from multiple corps that Splunk is quite expensive. I've been to one place that ran its own Elastic stack, which was a bit of cost in its own right because they had to run all the infrastructure and storage themselves, and had two FTEs whose main job was keeping the thing running. I don't know what Splunk offers from a UI/features perspective that Kibana couldn't do.
      • Avicebron19 minutes ago
        I agree (as the owner of an elastic stack at work). A second FTE sounds like a luxury though..
  • QuinnyPig3 hours ago
    "Splunk that runs locally with a worse UX, but on balance doesn't eat all the resources you throw at it and doesn't charge you a kidney."
    • brianjlogan3 hours ago
      There's far cheaper alternatives to Splunk that are still a step up from traditional syslog.

      KubeCon over the last couple of years was showing the market was a glut with Observability vendors which is just time series and log management. (traces are logs with a span id).