[request-tracker-maintainers] Bug#981942: Bug#981942: request-tracker4: Dependency on rsyslog | system-log-daemon prevents system with only journald

[Chris Hofstaedtler]

Hi,

* Dominic Hargreaves <dom at earth.li>:
> I don't recommend running without logging. Is there actually
> a problem with having syslog installed? I mean, it's a standard logging
> interface I'd expect to see on any Debian server setup and if systemd
> doesn't provide it when users expect it, that's a flaw on the systemd
> side.

Just wanted to chime in here: systemd's journald always takes over
/dev/log. This usually means any syslog() calls end up in the
journal.
If rsyslog is installed, it takes those messages from journald and
writes them into the usual plaintext log files. I believe the same
is true for the other syslog daemons.

Now, I -think- systemd does not provide system-log-daemon as that
interface probably should have a syslog.service unit, by-default
persistent log files and so on.

> RT can be configured to run with file based logging, but that's not the
> default. We could probably downgrade to Recommends if there was a real
> reason to.

If RT uses /dev/log (via syslog() or the equivalent Perl interface),
its credible to use RT with journald-only logging. I think
Recommends would be fine here. Most systems will still have a syslog
daemon installed, because rsyslog is still Priority: important.

Chris