SysLog installation
A new toy
After suffering through several years of a LinkSys WiFi router, I finally got tired of it and bought a new router for my home network. You can read about my reason for choosing a D-Link DIR-655 and experience installing it on my personal blog, but here I want to talk about my SysLog installationI can't say enough good about the D-Link DIR-655's capabilities, but that's probably because I'm coming from such a cheap piece of hardware from LinkSys. This new unit is more like the industrial strength firewalls I regularly use in my work environment, with plenty of professional features. The one I really like is the SysLog logging facility. Sure, it's not as clean and robust as OPCOM, but there's a piece of freeware on the OpenVMS Freeware CD #8 that allows a VMS system to collect syslog messages and store them in log files, or send them back out again via OPCOM. Note that there are 2 zip files in this directory -- the fw80_syslogd.zip file contains 2 items: the freeware_readme.txt file and the syslogd.zip file. Unless you want to run UNZIP twice, you'll be okay getting the syslogd.zip file.
I've used this program before, and installation is not exactly straightforward. While there is documentation included in the zip file, there are some caveats I'd like to explore.
First, this program makes extensive use of the UCX prefix. Call me anal, but I had to go through all the routines and replace them with TCP or TCPIP references.
Next, I had to modify the build program by adding the /NoTraceback switch to the Link command. This was required so that I could install the program with privs, rather than assign privs to the service account. To do the installation, I created a new command procedure that does it, as well as step #4 in the syslogd_ucx.doc file, enabling the service. My new command procedure, that's called in my SyStartup_VMS.com routine, looks like this:
$! SysLog startup routine
$! Install executable with privs...
$
$ Install Replace Sys$SysRoot:[TCP$SysLogd]TCP$SysLogd.exe /Priv=(SysPrv,Oper)
$
$! And start the service...
$
$ TCPIP Enable Service SysLog
Besides these changes, there's not a whole lot different from the info in the .doc file. Don't forget to set your service account with /Flag=Restrict, create a blank LOGIN.COM for it, and make sure all your file names match the paths and names in the various command procedures and the service definition. Once you're ready, try running the above startup procedure, then check the log files in the account's login directory for the results. If all's going well, you should also see a new system process with the name SYSLOGD_#.
If you chose to setup your .cfg file to log entries in separate log files, you can use Type /Tail and also /Page=Save to conveniently examine your logs.
Finally, I've setup a Kronos job on my system to cycle the logs every month, using the included LOGGER.EXE program with the "-c r" switch.
I've now got a great way to log events on my WiFi router on my OpenVMS host as well as notify me via OPCOM of significant events happening on my network. I find this to be a very useful tool!
No comments:
No trackbacks: