This is a part of the rsyslog.conf documentation.

Configuration File Syntax Differences

Rsyslogd uses a slightly different syntax for its configuration file than the original BSD sources. Originally all messages of a specific priority and above were forwarded to the log file. The modifiers "='', "!'' and "!-'' were added to make rsyslogd more flexible and to use it in a more intuitive manner.

The original BSD syslogd doesn't understand spaces as separators between the selector and the action field.

When compared to syslogd from sysklogd package, rsyslogd offers additional features (like template and database support). For obvious reasons, the syntax for defining such features is available in rsyslogd, only.

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