loggerfs 0.3

loggerfs is the virtual file system that allows you to store logs in a database. I just released the first version of it (checkout the News) and will now be focusing on supporting more logging formats. If you dont yet know what loggerfs is, then heres a simple explanation for when you need it:

- Are you running cron scripts periodically to parse log files and put them in a database?
- Do you need to store log files remotely because you have limited space?
- Would you like a more efficient solution than simply polling the log files and waiting for new data?

If you answer yes to any of the above questions, please take a look at loggerfs. It will allow you to create virtual files to which you can then direct syslog/ apache/ squid/ etc. to log to. For example, instead of having syslog store authentication information in /var/log/auth.log, you could create a virtual file in /var/loggerfs/auth.log and then tell syslog to log to that file. Now instead of storing the information in the auth.log file, the data is actually sent to a database server that you defined in the logs.xml file. Every time new information is sent to the file, it is immediately sent to the database server, which means that:

- It doesnt poll for information, it listens, which makes it a lot more efficient.
- It automatically creates the tables in the database and makes sure that all the information can be stored.
- Youll be able to easily sort/ analyze the log files once theyre in the database.

I encourage you to checkout the CVS on the sourceforge project page, and let me know if you have any questions/ problems/ suggestions.