Sendmail, 3rd Edition

Name

syslog

Synopsis

The syslog database-map type allows you to log messages directly from inside rule sets. If you are unfamiliar with syslog, see Section 14.3 for a general discussion of syslog-style logging.

The syslog type is declared like this:

Kname syslog switches

The name is the database-map name you will use in rule sets. The switches are selected from those shown in Table 23-25.

Table 23-25. The syslog database-map type K command switches

Switch	§	Description
-D	-D	Don’t use this database map if DeliveryMode=defer
-L	See this section	The logging level at which to log
-S	-S	Space replacement character

In rule sets, the syslog type is used, for example, like this:

R $*    $: $(name what to log $)

The information in the position of the key is logged as is via the syslog facility. An empty workspace is returned as a result of logging. That is, for the syslog type, the $( and $) expressions evaluate to an empty string.

Any use of defined macros in the message should use the $& prefix so that the current value is logged. For example, the following might be used to log the load average:

Kdolog syslog
R $*    $: $(dolog The cutoff was caused by a load average of $&{load_average}. $)

If you need to have a sendmail macro or positional macro literally logged as is, just prefix it with an extra $ character. For example, the following shows the macro and logs its value:

R $*    $: $(dolog Failure detected with $$1=$1 $)

Don’t use quotation marks to surround macro references. Quotation ...