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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html><head>
<meta content="de" http-equiv="Content-Language"><title>rsyslog vs. syslog-ng - a comparison</title></head>
<body>
<h1>rsyslog vs. syslog-ng</h1>
<p><small><i>Written by <a href="http://www.gerhards.net/rainer">Rainer Gerhards</a>
(2008-02-15)</i></small></p>
<p>We have often been asked abut a comparison sheet between
rsyslog and syslog-ng. Unfortunately, I do not know much about
syslog-ng, I did not even use it once. Also, there seems to be no
comprehensive feature sheet available for syslog-ng (that recently changed, see
below). So I started this
comparison, but it probably is not complete. For sure, I miss some
syslog-ng features. This is not an attempt to let rsyslog shine more
than it should. I just used the <a href="features.html">rsyslog
feature sheet</a> as a staring point, simply because it was
available. If you would like to add anything to the chart, or correct
it, please simply <a href="mailto:rgerhards@adiscon.com">drop
me a line</a>. I would love to see a real honest and up-to-date
comparison sheet, so please don't be shy ;)</p>
<table border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><b>Feature</b></td>
<td valign="top"><b>rsyslog</b></td>
<td valign="top"><b>syslog-ng</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for on-demand on-disk
spooling of messages</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">paid edition only</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to configure backup
syslog/database servers </td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to generate file names and
directories (log targets) dynamically</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">control of log output format,
including ability to present channel and priority as visible log data</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">not sure...</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">good timestamp format control; at a
minimum, ISO 8601/RFC 3339 second-resolution UTC zone</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">? (I guess so)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to reformat message
contents and work with substrings</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">I think yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for log files larger than
2gb</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for log file size limitation
and automatic rollover command execution</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for running multiple
syslogd instances on a single machine</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">? (but I think yes)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to filter on any part of
the message, not just facility and severity</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to use regular expressions
in filters</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for discarding messages
based on filters</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to execute shell scripts on
received messages</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to pipe messages to a
continously running program</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">powerful BSD-style hostname and
program name blocks for easy multi-host support</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">massively multi-threaded for
tomorrow's multi-core machines</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (only multithreaded with database destinations)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to control repeated line
reduction ("last message repeated n times") on a per selector-line basis</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to include config file from
within other config files</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" height="25">ability to include all config files
existing in a specific directory</td>
<td valign="top" height="25">yes</td>
<td valign="top" height="25">no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">supports multiple actions per
selector/filter condition</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">plug-in interface</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">Windows Event Log gatherer</td>
<td valign="top">via <a href="http://www.eventreporter.com">EventReporter</a>
or <a href="http://www.mwagent.com">MonitorWare Agent</a>
(both commercial software)</td>
<td valign="top">via Windows agent, paid edition only</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">config file format</td>
<td valign="top">compatible to legacy syslogd but
ugly</td>
<td valign="top">clean but not backwards compatible</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">web interface</td>
<td valign="top"><a href="http://www.phplogcon.org">phpLogCon</a><br>
[also works with <a href="http://freshmeat.net/projects/php-syslog-ng/">
php-syslog-ng</a>]</td>
<td valign="top"><a href="http://freshmeat.net/projects/php-syslog-ng/">
php-syslog-ng</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">using text files as input source</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">rate-limiting output actions</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">discard low-priority messages under
system stress</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="43" valign="top">flow control
(slow down message reception when system is busy)</td>
<td height="43" valign="top">limited (TCP
Window, delay on queue full)</td>
<td height="43" valign="top">yes (limited,
too? "stops accepting messages")</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">rewriting messages</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes (at least I think so...)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">output data into various formats</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes (looks somewhat limited to me)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to control "message
repeated n times" generation</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">license</td>
<td valign="top">GPLv3 (GPLv2 for v2 branch)</td>
<td valign="top">GPL (paid edition is closed source)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">supported platforms</td>
<td valign="top">Linux, BSD, anecdotical seen on
Solaris</td>
<td valign="top">many popular *nixes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">DNS cache</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">? (probably many I do no know
off...)</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><b><br>
Network (Protocol) Support<br>
</b></td>
<td valign="top"> </td>
<td valign="top"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for (plain) tcp based syslog</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for GSS-API</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to limit the allowed
network senders (syslog ACLs)</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for syslog-transport-tls
based framing on syslog/tcp connections</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">udp syslog</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">on the wire (zlib) message
compression</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no (?)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for receiving messages via
reliable <a href="http://www.monitorware.com/Common/en/glossary/rfc3195.php">RFC
3195</a> delivery</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for <a href="rsyslog_stunnel.html">ssl-protected
syslog</a> </td>
<td valign="top"><a href="rsyslog_stunnel.html">via
stunnel</a></td>
<td valign="top">via stunnel<br>
paid edition natively</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for IETF's new
syslog-protocol draft</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">support for IPv6</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">native ability to send SNMP traps</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">ability to preserve the original
hostname in NAT environments and relay chains</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
<td valign="top">yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br>
Supported Database Outputs<br>
</span></td>
<td valign="top"></td>
<td valign="top"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">MySQL</td>
<td valign="top"><a href="rsyslog_mysql.html">yes</a> (ommysql, <a href="omlibdbi.html">omlibdbi</a>)</td>
<td valign="top">paid edition only</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">PostgreSQL</td>
<td valign="top">yes (ompgsql, <a href="omlibdbi.html">omlibdbi</a>)</td>
<td valign="top">paid edition only</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top">Oracle</td><td valign="top">yes (<a href="omlibdbi.html">omlibdbi</a>)</td><td valign="top">paid edition only</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">SQLite</td><td valign="top">yes (<a href="omlibdbi.html">omlibdbi</a>)</td><td valign="top">paid edition only</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Microsoft SQL (Open TDS)</td><td valign="top">yes (<a href="omlibdbi.html">omlibdbi</a>)</td><td valign="top">no (?)</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Sybase (Open TDS)</td><td valign="top">yes (<a href="omlibdbi.html">omlibdbi</a>)</td><td valign="top">no (?)</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Firebird/Interbase</td><td valign="top">yes (<a href="omlibdbi.html">omlibdbi</a>)</td><td valign="top">no (?)</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Ingres</td><td valign="top">yes (<a href="omlibdbi.html">omlibdbi</a>)</td><td valign="top">no (?)</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">mSQL</td><td valign="top">yes (<a href="omlibdbi.html">omlibdbi</a>)</td><td valign="top">no (?)</td></tr></tbody>
</table>
<p>Based on a discussion I had, I also wrote about the <b>political
argument why it is good to have another strong syslogd besides syslog-ng</b>.
You may want to read it at my blog at "<a href="http://rgerhards.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-does-world-need-another-syslogd.html">Why
does the world need another syslogd?</a>".</p>
<p>Balabit, the vendor of syslog-ng, has just recently done a feature sheet. I
have not yet been able to fully work through it. In the mean time, you may want
to read it in parallel. It is available at
<a href="http://www.balabit.com/network-security/syslog-ng/features/detailed/">
Balabit's site</a>.</p>
<p>This document is current as of 2008-02-15 and definitely
incomplete (I did not yet manage to complete it!).</p>
</body></html>
|
