[mythtv-users] --logfile vs. --logpath

[Michael T. Dean]

On 05/21/2012 01:27 PM, Stephan Seitz wrote:
> On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 12:43:23PM -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>> You do realize you can easily find the current log file with 
>> something like:
>> ls -t /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend-*.log | head -n1
>> and could even have your mythbackend/mythfrontend start script create 
>> a link with a name like /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log using 
>> information obtained that way.
>
> Of course, we will certainly find other complicated hacks to get 
> standard behaviour.
>
>>> Piping the log output through syslog to get proper logfile names is 
>>> only a workaround for a buggy software.
>> Using the definition of buggy = something I don't understand/like?
>
> Buggy = something that doesn’t follow the good old unix way.

MythTV is different from many/most other *nix apps in that there are 
often multiple instances of applications running--and logging 
information--concurrently. That said, the only "good old unix way" of 
logging I know of is, in fact, syslog--everything else is pretty much 
non-standard, application-specific logging practices (where the vast 
majority of those applications have only one instance or an application 
to worry about, too).

>> Why not just use syslog? The syslog logging is the approach we've 
>
> Well, for now I’m using syslog according to your nice examples you 
> quoted. It is working but I still consider it a workaround, especially 
> since everything was right before 0.25.
>
> This is bad for distributions as well. How should mythtv be packaged? 
> With logpath and then having a directory with lots of confusing files? 
> With syslog and then try to figure out which facility is not used and 
> how to configure the different log daemons (Debian has three at least)?

FWIW, you don't need an unused log facility with the simple 
configuration (which I just moved to a separate page so it's easier to 
quote/easier to distinguish as separate).

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Simple_rsyslog_Configuration

As for dealing with multiple syslog implementations, I'd suppose 
packagers could handle it as they do for other syslog-using 
applications. (That said, I know nothing of packaging, but I do know of 
many applications that use syslog.)

Mike