summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/doc/rsyslog_ng_comparison.html
blob: db4bc7297f5cf1b61f7615db0960e94f116a41fd (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
<html>

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="de">
<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> (2008-01-29)</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. 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">
	<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">native support for
		<a href="http://www.rsyslog.com/doc-rsyslog_mysql.html">writing to MySQL 
		databases</a></td>
		<td valign="top">yes</td>
		<td valign="top">paid edition only</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td valign="top">native support for writing to Postgres databases</td>
		<td valign="top">yes</td>
		<td valign="top">paid edition only</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 sending and receiving compressed syslog messages</td>
		<td valign="top">yes</td>
		<td valign="top">I think &quot;no&quot;</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">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">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 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 rsyslogd instances on a single machine</td>
		<td valign="top">yes</td>
		<td valign="top">? (but I think yes)</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td valign="top">support for
		<a href="http://www.rsyslog.com/doc-rsyslog_stunnel.html">ssl-protected 
		syslog</a> </td>
		<td valign="top">via stunnel</td>
		<td valign="top">via stunnel<br>
		paid edition natively</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">ability to preserve the original hostname in NAT environments and 
		relay chains</td>
		<td valign="top">yes</td>
		<td valign="top">yes (think so)</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">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">?</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 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">support for IPv6</td>
		<td valign="top">yes</td>
		<td valign="top">yes (?)</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td valign="top">ability to control repeated line reduction (&quot;last message repeated n 
		times&quot;) on a per selector-line basis</td>
		<td valign="top">yes</td>
		<td valign="top">yes (?)</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td valign="top">config file includes, also full directory includes</td>
		<td valign="top">yes</td>
		<td valign="top">?</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">support for GSS-API</td>
		<td valign="top">yes</td>
		<td valign="top">?</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">? (probably many I do no know off...)</td>
		<td valign="top">no</td>
		<td valign="top">yes</td>
	</tr>
</table>
<p>This document is current as of 2008-01-29 and definitely incomplete (I did 
not yet manage to complete it!).</p>

</body>

</html>