Hello all,

what's the use of syslogd putting "-- MARK --" every so often (20 mn as
a default) ?

thx,
gregg

gregg wrote:

> what's the use of syslogd putting "-- MARK --" every so often (20 mn as
> a default) ?

so you know that the machine was running at that moment.

gregg wrote :
>
> what's the use of syslogd putting "-- MARK --" every so often (20 mn as
> a default) ?
>
--MARK-- is just a time stamp in case some thing turns out wrong, so
that you can track down the last known time of activity in your logs.

From 'man syslogd':
-m interval
The syslogd logs a mark timestamp regularly. The default interval
between two -- MARK -- lines is 20 minutes. This can be changed with
this option. Setting the interval to zero turns it off entirely.
--
Thomas O.

This area is designed to become quite warm during normal operation.

gregg (greggory@netJUSTSAYNOcourrier.com) writes:
> Hello all,
>
> what's the use of syslogd putting "-- MARK --" every so often (20 mn as
> a default) ?
>
> thx,
> gregg

So you know syslog is still working.

Otherwise, you'd not be sure if nothing had happened, or nothing had been
logged.

Michael

On 2004-11-07, gregg <greggory@netJUSTSAYNOcourrier.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> what's the use of syslogd putting "-- MARK --" every so often (20 mn as
> a default) ?
>
> thx,
> gregg
as others have said, it's just a way for syslogd to
check itself, and let you know that it's still working.
although it will fill up log files, so an easy way to
turn MARK off is to edit /etc/rc.d/rc.syslog and
add '-m 0' to the line that starts syslogd like this:
/usr/sbin/syslogd -m 0
this will keep set syslog's MARK to zero when it starts
during boot. to go ahead and turn MARK off while your box
is still running, just kill the daemon and restart it
with the '-m 0' arguments, preferably all at once like this:
# pkill syslogd ; /usr/sbin/syslogd -m 0
once you've done this, you'll no longer get visited by MARK.

Thomas Overgaard wrote:
> gregg wrote :
>
>>what's the use of syslogd putting "-- MARK --" every so often (20 mn as
>>a default) ?
>>
>
> --MARK-- is just a time stamp in case some thing turns out wrong, so
> that you can track down the last known time of activity in your logs.
>
> From 'man syslogd':

why, yes i had read the man before posting

but i didn't understand why such a feature existed.
thank all of you for your answer

(i now know it's just a signpost ot know the system was active at the
time, thus enabling the tracking down of problems --if any-- when no
sylog events had occured in a certain period)

++
gregg

D Jaimes (dj@swicked.net) writes:
> On 2004-11-07, gregg <greggory@netJUSTSAYNOcourrier.com> wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> what's the use of syslogd putting "-- MARK --" every so often (20 mn as
>> a default) ?
>>
>> thx,
>> gregg
> as others have said, it's just a way for syslogd to
> check itself, and let you know that it's still working.
> although it will fill up log files, so an easy way to
> turn MARK off is to edit /etc/rc.d/rc.syslog and
> add '-m 0' to the line that starts syslogd like this:
> /usr/sbin/syslogd -m 0
> this will keep set syslog's MARK to zero when it starts
> during boot. to go ahead and turn MARK off while your box
> is still running, just kill the daemon and restart it
> with the '-m 0' arguments, preferably all at once like this:
> # pkill syslogd ; /usr/sbin/syslogd -m 0
> once you've done this, you'll no longer get visited by MARK.

I used Slackware 7 up to this past January, and the log files did get
very big.

But Slackware 10 is configured out of the box to keep the files to about
a week in length each, and only keeps 5 on disk. This limits how much
space will be used, and automates any need for deleting old files, and
starting new log files.

I'm not sure at what point this change was introduced, I think it was in 9.1.

Michael

gregg blithely blithered
> Hello all,
>
> what's the use of syslogd putting "-- MARK --" every so often (20 mn as
> a default) ?
>
> thx,
> gregg

Very useful for those of us running multiple machines and logging the
whole lot of them to one.

--
I think I am an overnight sensation right now!!

On 7 Nov 2004 18:34:19 GMT,
Michael Black <et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
>
> D Jaimes (dj@swicked.net) writes:
>
>> once you've done this, you'll no longer get visited by MARK.

That syslog message can be extra confusing to a newbie when your
username is mark.

> But Slackware 10 is configured out of the box to keep the files to about
> a week in length each, and only keeps 5 on disk.
....
> I'm not sure at what point this change was introduced, I think it was in 9.1.

It was 8.1. From the changelog:

Sun Apr 7 18:15:16 PDT 2002
....
a/logrotate-3.6.2-i386-1.tgz: Added by popular demand. ;-)

--
Mark Hill

On 17 Nov 2004 14:28:30 GMT,
Mark Hill <mrhill@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:
> On 7 Nov 2004 18:34:19 GMT,
> Michael Black <et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
>>
>> D Jaimes (dj@swicked.net) writes:
>>
>>> once you've done this, you'll no longer get visited by MARK.
>
> That syslog message can be extra confusing to a newbie when your
> username is mark.

Hilarious--thanks for the laugh!

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <theo@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA