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Notes on reading kernel messages

Note the following points when reading kernel messages on various platforms.

  • The kernel usually sends log messages to a special file (/dev/kmsg on BSDs, /proc/kmsg on Linux). The file() driver reads log messages from such files. The AxoSyslog application can periodically check the file for new log messages if the follow-freq() option is set.

  • On Linux, the klogd daemon can be used in addition to AxoSyslog to read kernel messages and forward them to syslog-ng. klogd used to preprocess kernel messages to resolve symbols and so on, but as this is deprecated by ksymoops there is really no point in running both klogd and AxoSyslog in parallel. Also note that running two processes reading /proc/kmsg at the same time might result in dead-locks.

  • When using AxoSyslog to read messages from the /proc/kmsg file, AxoSyslog automatically disables the follow-freq() parameter to avoid blocking the file.

  • To read the kernel messages on HP-UX platforms, use the following options in the source statement:

        file("/dev/klog" program-override("kernel") flags(kernel) follow-freq(0));