Configuring and Managing MPE/iX Internet Services (MPE/iX 6.5)

206 AppendixC
BIND 8.1 Enhanced Features
BIND 8 Highlights
in this manual. How syslog will handle messages sent to this facility is
described under syslog.conf earlier in this manual. If you have a
system which uses a very old version of syslog and that only uses two
arguments to the openlog() function, then this clause is silently ignored.
The severity clause works like syslog’s “priorities”, except that they can
also be used if you are writing straight to a file rather than using
syslog. Messages which are not at least of the severity level given will
not be selected for the channel; messages of higher severity levels will
be accepted.
If you are using syslog, then the syslog.conf priorities will also
determine what eventually passes through. For example, defining a
channel facility and severity as daemon and debug but only logging
daemon.warning via syslog.conf will cause messages of severity
information and notice to be dropped. If the situation were reversed,
with named writing messages of only warning or higher, then syslog
would print all messages it received from the channel.
The server can supply extensive debugging information when it is in
debugging mode. If the server’s global debug level is greater than zero,
then debugging mode will be active. The global debug level is set either
by starting the server with the “-d” flag followed by a positive integer, or
by sending the server the SIGUSR1 signal (for example, by using
“ndc trace”). The global debug level can be set to zero, and debugging
mode turned off, by sending the server the SIGUSR2 signal
(“ndc notrace”. All debugging messages in the server have a debug
level, and higher debug levels give more detailed output. Channels that
specify a specific debug severity, for example,
channel specific_debug_level {
file “foo”;
severity debug 3;
};
will get debugging output of level 3 or less any time the server is in
debugging mode, regardless of the global debugging level. Channels
with dynamic severity use the server’s global level to determine what
messages to print.
If print-time has been turned on, then the date and time will be
logged. print-time may be specified for a syslog channel, but is usually
pointless since syslog also prints the date and time. If print-category
is requested, then the category of the message will be logged as well.
Finally, if print-severity is on, then the severity level of the message
will be logged. The print options may be used in any combination, and
will always be printed in the following order: time, category, and
severity. Here is an example where all three print options are on:
28-Apr-1997 15:05:32.863 default: notice: Ready to answer queries.
There are four predefined channels that are used for named’s default
logging as follows. How they are used is described in the next section,