A month ago, when sudo 1.9.8 was still under development, we checked out the new log_subcmds option. It allows you log all commands (with some limitations) that are executed by a command started through sudo. For example, you can see if a shell was started through a text editor. The intercept option brings this one step further: you can prevent sub-commands from even running. Read the rest of my blog at https://blog.

Version 3.33 of syslog-ng arrived with basic MQTT support. Version 3.34 has added many important features to it: user authentication, TLS support and WebSocket support. These features give you both security and flexibility while sending log messages to an MQTT broker. This blog helps you to make your first steps securing your MQTT connection: https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/syslog-ng-3-34-mqtt-destination-with-tls-and-websocket-support

Dear syslog-ng users, This is the 94th issue of syslog-ng Insider, a monthly newsletter that brings you syslog-ng-related news. Topics include: Version 3.34.1 of syslog-ng available Syslog-ng updated in OpenBSD ports OpenSearch and syslog-ng Creating a new http()-based syslog-ng destination: Seq It is available at: https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/the-syslog-ng-insider-2021-09-3-34-openbsd-opensearch-http-destination

Better late than never I just put online the July syslog-ng newsletter. Topics include: Sending alerts to Discord and others from syslog-ng using Apprise: blocks and Python templates Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, CentOS & syslog-ng MongoDB support improved in syslog-ng 3.32 It is available at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/insider-2021-07-alerting-centos-alternatives-mongodb

For the past couple of months, Yash Mathne has been working on testing syslog-ng on MacOS as a GSoC (Google Summer of Code) student. He worked both on x86 and on the freshly released ARM hardware. And we have some good news here to share: while there is still room for improvement, most of syslog-ng works perfectly well on MacOS. Read my blog for some historical background and the GSoC report: https://www.

Sudo development is at version 1.9.8 beta 3. There are two major new features: sudo can intercept sub-commands and log sub-commands. In this quick teaser I introduce you to log_subcmds. I hope it is interesting enough for you to test it out and provide feedback. So, what is log_subcmds good for? There are many UNIX tools that can spawn external applications. You only see vi in the logs, but can you be sure without session recording that your admin only edits what he is supposed to?

Collecting process accounting logs on Linux with syslog-ng Process accounting logs are collected into binary log files on Linux. You can turn them into human readable format locally, using various tools. You can also use syslog-ng to read those files. Lean how syslog-ng can parse those binary logs, create name-value pairs from them and store the results from my latest blog: https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/collecting-process-accounting-logs-on-linux-with-syslog-ng

Securing the sudo to sudo_logsrvd connection Using sudo_logsrvd to centrally collect sudo session recordings from your network is a huge step forward in security: users cannot delete or modify session recordings locally. However, by default, transmission of recordings is not encrypted, making it open to modifications and eavesdropping. Encrypting the connection between sudo and sudo_logsrvd can eliminate these problems. Larger environments usually either have in-house PKI tooling in place, or colleagues who know all openssl options off the top of their heads.

One of the most popular destinations in syslog-ng is Elasticsearch. Due to the license change of the Elastic stack, some people changed quickly to Grafana/Loki and other technologies. However, most syslog-ng users decided to wait and see. Version 1.0.0 of OpenSearch, a fork of the Elastic code base from before the license change is now available. Elastic also published a new release last week. For this blog, I tested the latest and greatest from both product lines and I’m sharing my experiences.

Using the udp-balancer() source of syslog-ng PE UDP-based log collection is so last century. We had TCP-based log collection for decades and TLS encryption to secure connections. Still, UDP is in wide use, especially at large companies and industrial automation, where every change is slow. In most cases, UDP logging is used by networking devices, but sometimes it is just left there from ancient times and people are reluctant to change it.