nanog mailing list archives

Re: Future timestamps in /var/log/secure


From: Seth Mattinen <sethm () rollernet us>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:52:22 -0800

On 2/26/2010 11:46, William Pitcock wrote:
On Fri, 2010-02-26 at 19:30 +0000, gordon b slater wrote:
On Fri, 2010-02-26 at 13:17 -0600, William Pitcock wrote:
The syslog message sent to the local unix socket (/dev/log
or /dev/syslog) may contain a timestamp, in which case, that timestamp
may be used instead of the local time.  As the syslog protocol defines
that timestamps are localtime, without any specification of what
timezone localtime actually is, the TZ environment variable of the
application calling syslog() will affect the timestamp placed in the
log.

aha! there you go, mine doesn't but maybe yours does?

The specification for the syslog protocol is that timestamps embedded in
the message should be used instead of syslogd's time.  Most syslog
daemons as a result apply this concept to both local and remote
messages.

You have to keep in mind that syslogd can also send/receive messages
to/from remote destinations.


It's easier to see these timezone issues when using an ISO timestamp
like "2010-02-26T06:26:17-08:00" instead of the old style that omits the
timezone.

~Seth


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