[request-tracker-maintainers] Bug#747076: Bug#747076: request-tracker4: rt.log file permissions

[Dominic Hargreaves]

On Mon, May 05, 2014 at 01:14:26PM +0100, Dominic Hargreaves wrote:
> The common case appears to be that /var/log/request-tracker4/rt.log
> is created owned by root, without group write permissions, so that
> the web app can't write to the file. The solution for Debian is
> probably to ensure that the file is group writable via tweaking the
> umask (/var/log/request-tracker4 is SGID so the group ownership should
> be correct); but this might have to be something that an administrator
> updates since it will vary accordingly to the particular deployemnt.

Just to be clear, this was exposed as a result of the change to the
defaults, in #712147. Unfortunately neither the bug submitter nor I
gave any reasoning behind this choice, and (partly because of the issue
above and partly because of the general advice given at the
"Quit logging!"[1] Debconf session to prefer standard logging methods
rather than logging directly to files, I am inclined to revert this
change in time for the jessie release. This would mean that Syslog is
used again (in fact I might make it explicit, rather than directly
reverting the change).

I note also that at least in 2009[2], LogToFile was not recommended for
production deployment in any case.

I will do this soon unless anyone has any contrary views.

Cheers,
Dominic.

[1] <https://summit.debconf.org/debconf14/meeting/70/quit-logging-or-data-minimization-in-debian/>
[2] <http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/rt/users/89105#89105>