forwarding entries in /var/adm/messages file to email address

[stevenriz]

Would like to forward new entries in the /car/adm/messages file to an email address. I thought I knew how to do this but it isn't working. Any thoughts? Thanks!
Steve

 

[stevenriz]

I am reading aroung the internet and seeing that it might not be possible by default but I am thinking if we modify the syslog.conf file. Wherever we see this....

user.err /var/adm/messages

add something like this right below it....
user.err root

Then forward all root email to another email address such as a pager if certain conditions apply (kernel panic etc)...

Thoughts?

 

[nawlej]

Just a thought. Do you realize when you have device failures, it will stream to that log file? I mean, lots of messages, especially for hard drive errors. Do you really want a text message for any of that? If you really wanted it, you could tail the log file as a file handler in perl, and then pump it into an email for every message you recieve.

___________________________________
[morse]--... ...--[/morse], Eric.

 

[stevenriz]

I thought I would send the emails to a mail server then upon certain terms failure, overheat etc I would then send only those to my pager. Then once in a while clean out that particular email account.

 

[stevenriz]

if I edit syslog.conf, is there anything I need to restart in order for the server to see the changes?

 

[SBSaikia]

To take new config you restart syslogd service.

Aonther Simple way:
Run a script thru cron every 5 min- say to check for new entries in messages file, if found send these new entries in a mail.
I hope one will be intend to receive only critical/error alerts .... so do it accordingly....

-sbs

 

[stevenriz]

what would this sort of script look like do you think? I am not much of a scripter...

 

[SBSaikia]

Hi stevenriz,
Hope you know shell scripts. Use simple commands like cp, diff, egrep, mail etc.
Tell me which portion you didn't understand?

 

[stevenriz]

ummm errr never wrote scripts other then cp and executing things. never did diff or egrep using a script.... We do have a guy here that is good at scripting I could ask if it is a lot to ask....