Last week, the ivykis library, the most important core dependency of syslog-ng landed in EPEL 9 successfully. There are still plenty of dependencies missing, but this way, I could submit a slightly cut down version of syslog-ng to EPEL 9. Hopefully the rest of the dependencies will arrive in EPEL 9 as well. I plan to update the syslog-ng package as soon as the dependencies arrive. Luckily, these are only needed to enable some less frequently used syslog-ng destination drivers, no core functionality is affected.
Before you begin
RHEL 9 is still in beta testing. CentOS 9 Stream is available and feels relatively polished, but it is still under development. Neither of them is ready for production, but if you use RHEL on clones in production, it is recommended to get to know them, so you are ready when they are generally available. EPEL 9 development has also started: there are many packages, but even more are missing. I did my tests on CentOS 9 Stream.
Help us with testing
Right now, syslog-ng is submitted to EPEL but not yet in the stable repository. You can download RPM packages from the EPEL testing repository. To be able to send logs to Elasticsearch or to various cloud services, like Discord, you need to install the syslog-ng-http package. It will pull in all necessary dependencies, including the base syslog-ng package. First, enable the epel-testing repository, then install the package from the command line:
dnf install syslog-ng-http
Finally, enable and start syslog-ng:
systemctl enable syslog-ng systemctl start syslog-ng
Provide us with feedback
This week, you can speed up migrating syslog-ng from testing to the stable repository by providing “karma” on this Bodhi page: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-EPEL-2022-db30529376 Without enough karma, it takes well over a week, before the syslog-ng package is moved into the EPEL 9 stable repository. Once it is there, you do not need the epel-testing repository anymore.
You can also provide feedback to us on the syslog-ng github “Discussions” page at: https://github.com/syslog-ng/syslog-ng/discussions/
What is still missing?
The following dependencies and are still missing from EPEL 9, and thus the related sub-modules are unavailable in the current syslog-ng package:
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hiredis-devel → Redis support
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libdbi-devel → SQL support
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libesmtp-devel → SMTP support
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mongo-c-driver-devel → MongoDB support
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paho-c-devel → MQTT support
I am not sure if all of them will make it to EPEL 9, as some of them are not actively maintained anymore upstream. But as soon as any of these arrive in EPEL 9, I will make a new build and enable support for them.
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If you have questions or comments related to syslog-ng, do not hesitate to contact us. You can reach us by email or even chat with us. For a list of possibilities, check our GitHub page under the “Community” section at https://github.com/syslog-ng/syslog-ng. On Twitter, I am available as @PCzanik.