path: root/doc/rfc/rfc5427.txt

Network Working Group                                           G. Keeni
Request for Comments: 5427                          Cyber Solutions Inc.
Category: Standards Track                                     March 2009


               Textual Conventions for Syslog Management

Status of This Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2009 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents in effect on the date of
   publication of this document (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info).
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.

   This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
   Contributions published or made publicly available before November
   10, 2008.  The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this
   material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
   modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
   Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
   the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified
   outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may
   not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
   it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
   than English.

Abstract

   This MIB module defines textual conventions to represent Facility and
   Severity information commonly used in syslog messages.  The intent is
   that these textual conventions will be imported and used in MIB
   modules that would otherwise define their own representations.







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Table of Contents

   1. The Internet-Standard Management Framework ......................2
   2. Background ......................................................2
   3. The Syslog Textual Conventions MIB ..............................3
   4. Security Considerations .........................................7
   5. IANA Considerations .............................................7
   6. References ......................................................8
      6.1. Normative References .......................................8
      6.2. Informative References .....................................8
   7. Acknowledgments .................................................8

1.  The Internet-Standard Management Framework

   For a detailed overview of the documents that describe the current
   Internet-Standard Management Framework, please refer to section 7 of
   RFC 3410 [RFC3410].

   Managed objects are accessed via a virtual information store, termed
   the Management Information Base or MIB.  MIB objects are generally
   accessed through the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
   Objects in the MIB are defined using the mechanisms defined in the
   Structure of Management Information (SMI).  This memo specifies a MIB
   module that is compliant to the SMIv2, which is described in STD 58,
   RFC 2578 [RFC2578], STD 58, RFC 2579 [RFC2579] and STD 58, RFC 2580
   [RFC2580].

2.  Background

   Operating systems, processes, and applications, collectively termed
   "Facilities" in the following, generate messages indicating their own
   status or the occurrence of events.  These messages have come to be
   known as syslog messages.  A syslog message in general will contain
   among other things a code representing the Facility that generated
   the message and a code representing the Severity of the message.  The
   Facility and the Severity codes are commonly used to categorize and
   select received syslog messages for processing and display.  The
   Facility codes have been useful in qualifying the originator of the
   content of the messages but in some cases they are not specific
   enough to explicitly identify the originator.  Implementations of the
   syslog protocol [RFC5424] that contain structured data elements
   (SDEs) should use these SDEs to clarify the entity that originated
   the content of the message.

   This document defines a set of textual conventions (TCs) that can be
   used to represent Facility and Severity codes commonly used in syslog
   messages.




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   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

3.  The Syslog Textual Conventions MIB

   SYSLOG-TC-MIB DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN

   IMPORTS
       MODULE-IDENTITY, mib-2
                 FROM SNMPv2-SMI        -- [RFC2578]
       TEXTUAL-CONVENTION
                 FROM SNMPv2-TC;        -- [RFC2579]

   syslogTCMIB  MODULE-IDENTITY
       LAST-UPDATED "200903300000Z"     --  30 March 2009
       ORGANIZATION "IETF Syslog Working Group"
       CONTACT-INFO
       "                      Glenn Mansfield Keeni
                      Postal: Cyber Solutions Inc.
                              6-6-3, Minami Yoshinari
                              Aoba-ku, Sendai, Japan 989-3204.
                         Tel: +81-22-303-4012
                         Fax: +81-22-303-4015
                       EMail: glenn@cysols.com

         Support Group EMail: syslog@ietf.org
         "

       DESCRIPTION
           "The MIB module containing textual conventions for syslog
            messages.

            Copyright (c) 2009 IETF Trust and the persons
            identified as authors of the code.  All rights reserved.

            Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or
            without modification, are permitted provided that the
            following conditions are met:

            - Redistributions of source code must retain the above
              copyright notice, this list of conditions and the
              following disclaimer.

            - Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
              copyright notice, this list of conditions and the
              following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other
              materials provided with the distribution.



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            - Neither the name of Internet Society, IETF or IETF
              Trust, nor the names of specific contributors, may be
              used to endorse or promote products derived from this
              software without specific prior written permission.

            THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND
            CONTRIBUTORS 'AS IS' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
            WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
            WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
            PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT
            OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
            INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
            (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE
            GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR
            BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
            LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
            (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT
            OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
            POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

            This version of this MIB module is part of RFC 5427;
            see the RFC itself for full legal notices.
           "

       REVISION "200903300000Z"     --  30 March 2009
       DESCRIPTION
           "The initial version, published as RFC 5427."

       ::= { mib-2 173 }

   -- -------------------------------------------------------------
   -- Textual Conventions
   -- -------------------------------------------------------------

   SyslogFacility  ::=  TEXTUAL-CONVENTION
       STATUS  current
       DESCRIPTION
           "This textual convention enumerates the Facilities that
            originate syslog messages.

            The Facilities of syslog messages are numerically coded
            with decimal values.  For interoperability and backwards-
            compatibility reasons, this document specifies a
            normative mapping between a label, which represents a
            Facility, and the corresponding numeric value.  This label
            could be used in, for example, SNMP Manager user
            interfaces.




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            The label itself is often semantically meaningless
            because it is impractical to attempt to enumerate all
            possible Facilities, and many daemons and processes do
            not have an explicitly assigned Facility code or label.
            For example, there is no Facility label corresponding to
            an HTTP service.  An HTTP service implementation might log
            messages as coming from, for example, 'local7' or 'uucp'.
            This is typical current practice, and originators, relays,
            and collectors can be configured to properly handle this
            situation.  For improved accuracy, an application can also
            include an APP-NAME structured data element.

            Note that operating system mechanisms for configuring
            syslog, such as syslog.conf, have not yet been standardized
            and might use different sets of Facility labels and/or
            mapping between Facility labels and Facility codes than the
            MIB.

            In particular, the labels corresponding to Facility codes 4,
            10, 13, and 14, and the code corresponding to the Facility
            label 'cron' are known to vary across different operating
            systems.  To distinguish between the labels corresponding
            to Facility codes 9 and 15, a label of 'cron2' is assigned
            to the Facility code 15.  This list is not intended to be
            exhaustive; other differences might exist, and new
            differences might be introduced in the future.

            The mapping specified here MUST be used in a MIB network
            management interface, even though a particular syslog
            implementation might use a different mapping in a
            different network management interface.
           "
       REFERENCE "The Syslog Protocol (RFC5424): Table 1"
       SYNTAX  INTEGER
            {

              kern            (0), -- kernel messages
              user            (1), -- user-level messages
              mail            (2), -- mail system messages
              daemon          (3), -- system daemons' messages
              auth            (4), -- authorization messages
              syslog          (5), -- messages generated internally by
                                   -- syslogd
              lpr             (6), -- line printer subsystem messages
              news            (7), -- network news subsystem messages
              uucp            (8), -- UUCP subsystem messages
              cron            (9), -- clock daemon messages
              authpriv        (10),-- security/authorization messages



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              ftp             (11),-- ftp daemon messages
              ntp             (12),-- NTP subsystem messages
              audit           (13),-- audit messages
              console         (14),-- console messages
              cron2           (15),-- clock daemon messages
              local0          (16),
              local1          (17),
              local2          (18),
              local3          (19),
              local4          (20),
              local5          (21),
              local6          (22),
              local7          (23)
            }

   SyslogSeverity  ::=  TEXTUAL-CONVENTION
       STATUS  current
       DESCRIPTION
           "This textual convention enumerates the Severity levels
            of syslog messages.

            The Severity levels of syslog messages are numerically
            coded with decimal values.  For interoperability and
            backwards-compatibility reasons, this document specifies
            a normative mapping between a label, which represents a
            Severity level, and the corresponding numeric value.
            This label could be used in, for example, SNMP Manager
            user interfaces.

            The label itself is often semantically meaningless
            because it is impractical to attempt to strictly define
            the criteria for each Severity level, and the criteria
            that is used by syslog originators is, and has
            historically been, implementation-dependent.

            Note that operating system mechanisms for configuring
            syslog, such as syslog.conf, have not yet been standardized
            and might use different sets of Severity labels and/or
            mapping between Severity labels and Severity codes than the
            MIB.

            For example, the foobar application might log messages as
            'crit' based on some subjective criteria.  Yet the operator
            can configure syslog to forward these messages, even though
            the criteria for 'crit' may differ from one originator to
            another.  This is typical current practice, and originators,
            relays, and collectors can be configured to properly handle
            this situation.



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           "
       REFERENCE "The Syslog Protocol (RFC5424): Table 2"
       SYNTAX  INTEGER
            {
              emerg           (0),  -- emergency; system is unusable
              alert           (1),  -- action must be taken immediately
              crit            (2),  -- critical condition
              err             (3),  -- error condition
              warning         (4),  -- warning condition
              notice          (5),  -- normal but significant condition
              info            (6),  -- informational message
              debug           (7)   -- debug-level messages

            }

   END

4.  Security Considerations

   This module does not define any management objects.  Instead, it
   defines a set of textual conventions which may be used by other MIB
   modules to define management objects.  Meaningful security
   considerations can only be written in the MIB modules that define
   management objects.  This document has therefore no impact on the
   security of the Internet.  Since objects defined using the TCs
   defined in this document may introduce security issues, the user of
   these TCs should read the security considerations section of
   [RFC5424].

5.   IANA Considerations

   The MIB modules in this document use the following IANA-assigned
   OBJECT IDENTIFIER values recorded in the SMI Numbers registry:

   Descriptor        OBJECT IDENTIFIER value
   ----------        -----------------------

   syslogTCMIB       { mib-2 173 }













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6.   References

6.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2578]  McCloghrie, K., Perkins, D., and J. Schoenwaelder,
              "Structure of Management Information Version 2 (SMIv2)",
              STD 58, RFC 2578, April 1999.

   [RFC2579]  McCloghrie, K., Perkins, D., and J. Schoenwaelder,
              "Textual Conventions for SMIv2", STD 58, RFC 2579, April
              1999.

   [RFC2580]  McCloghrie, K., Perkins, D., and J. Schoenwaelder,
              "Conformance Statements for SMIv2", STD 58, RFC 2580,
              April 1999.

   [RFC5424]  Gerhards, R., "The Syslog Protocol", RFC 5424, March 2009.

6.2.  Informative References

   [RFC3410]  Case, J., Mundy, R., Partain, D., and B. Stewart,
              "Introduction and Applicability Statements for Internet-
              Standard Management Framework", RFC 3410, December 2002.

7.  Acknowledgments

   This document is a product of the Syslog Working Group.  The author
   would like to thank Chris Lonvick, David Harrington, Juergen
   Schoenwaelder, and Pasi Eronen for their comments and suggestions.

Author's Address

   Glenn Mansfield Keeni
   Cyber Solutions Inc.
   6-6-3 Minami Yoshinari
   Aoba-ku, Sendai 989-3204
   Japan

   Phone: +81-22-303-4012
   EMail: glenn@cysols.com








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