The steps below will guide you through configuring syslog on an AIX system. This information is tested for AIX 4.3.3, AIX 5.1, AIX 5.2 and AIX 5.3 but may be valid for others.

By default, an AIX system will not do syslog logging. For some strange reason, the default install on an AIX install will not place entries in /etc/syslog.conf, leaving a useless syslogd.

In addition, based on the AIX versions listed above, comparing the syslogd on AIX to another UNIX, (ex: Linux), you will notice that .* does not work. So make sure that your priority level is never *.

Based on a similar Linux configuration, here is an example configuration:

mail.debug /var/log/mail
user.debug /var/log/user
kern.debug /var/log/kern
syslog.debug /var/log/syslog
daemon.debug /var/log/daemon
auth.debug /var/log/secure
local2.debug /var/log/sudo

 As AIX standard has no logrotate daemon running, you want to adapt syslogd to do the rotating on its own.  An example would be:

mail.debug   /var/log/mail  rotate size 100k files 4 ….. # 4 files, 100kB each user.debug  

/var/log/user  rotate files 12 time 1m ………………... # 12 files, monthly rotate kern.debug  

/var/log/kern  rotate files 12 time 1m compress ........ # 12 files, monthly rotate, compress ...

When changes are made to /etc/syslog.conf, make sure to restart syslogd:

[root@sys /] refresh -s syslogd

0513-095 The request for subsystem refresh was completed successfully.

[root@sys /]