Configuring a Netapp FAS to forward syslog messages

You would like to configure your Netapp FAS controller to forward its syslog error messages to a remote syslog server.

Cause:

By default all messages are logged to the console and to the /etc/messages file.  You must manually setup logging to a remote syslog server.

Solution:

You can use the following procedure to configure the Netapp FAS controller to forward messages to a remote syslog server.  The default configuration is to log error (*.err) and kernel (kern.*) messages to the remote syslog server.  Informational messages will still be sent to the console and the /etc/messages file.

1)      Connect to the Netapp FAS Controller etc$ share

a.       \\netapp_name\etc$

2)      Check for existing syslog.conf file in the etc$ share

a.       If the file does not exist copy the syslog.conf.sample file to syslog.conf

      3)      Open the syslog.conf file in a text editor

a.       You only need to edit one of the items circled in red or green as shown in the following screenshot, I recommend editing the line circled in red.

b.      Each section of the syslog.conf file demonstrates how you can manipulate the syslog configuration.  The information circled in purple is meant to point out the association between the description and the configuration line.  These require more advanced syslog server configuration, and are not covered in this article.

 

4)      Edit the syslog.conf file as needed.

a.       Basically, remove the comment indicator (#), and replace adminhost with the ip address or host name of the remote syslog server.

b.      If you need to log to multiple syslog servers use multiple lines.

c.       Here is an example showing how to log to two different servers, one by ip address, the other by FQDN.

d.      Save the file.

e.       The Netapp Controller will automatically detect the change to the syslog.conf file and load it; this may take a couple of minutes. When the change has completed, a syslog message similar to the following will be displayed:

Wed Jan 28 09:17:12 EST [syslogd:info]: syslogd: restarted

5)      You can now configure the remote syslog server to accept the incoming messages.