RFC 3164: BSD Syslog protocol

It is of interest to review RFC 3164. It begins with the following sentences:

  • Since the beginning, life has relied upon the transmission of messages. 
  • The messages may signal danger, the presence of food, or the other necessities of life, and many other things.

Note

The RFC continues on one of the fundamental tenants of the syslog protocol is its simplicity. This simplicity has greatly aided the acceptance and deployment of syslog.

When these two sentences are extrapolated, they tell the entire story of syslog protocol. It was intended to permit one-way transmission of messages, and has survived because of its extremely simple nature.

For any design considerations regarding syslog senders and receivers, you can discount RFC 3164. Because the protocol is so simple to implement, an RFC to describe that protocol in depth is almost unnecessary. To send a syslog message, a sender opens a connection to a machine, where a process is listening at UDP port 514. The user sends a clear text message in the format described previously (that is, a numeric header and some text), and then disconnects and continues without requiring acknowledgement.

Related topic

Syslog-protocol


 

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