Log Management

Document revision 19-Nov-2002
This document applies to MikroTik RouterOS v2.6

Overview

Various system events and status information can be logged. Logs can be saved in a file on the router or sent to a remote server running a syslog daemon. MikroTik provides a shareware Windows Syslog daemon, which can be downloaded from www.mikrotik.com.

Topics covered in this manual:

Installation

The Log Management feature is included in the 'system' package. No installation is needed for this feature.

Hardware Resource Usage

There is no significant resource usage.

Log Management Description

The logging feature sends all of your actions on the router to a log file or to a logging daemon. Router has several global configuration settings that are applied to logging. Logs have different facilities. Logs from each facility can be configured to be discarded, logged locally or remotely.

General settings for logging facility can be configured in the /system logging menu:

[admin@MikroTik] system logging> print
    default-remote-address: 10.5.13.11
       default-remote-port: 514
	      buffer-lines: 100

General logging parameters:


buffer-lines - Number of lines kept in local buffer. Contents of the local logs can be viewed using the /log print command. When number of lines in local log buffer is exceeded, lines from the beginning of buffer are deleted.
default-remote-address - Remote log server IP address. Used when remote logging is enabled but no IP address of the remote server is specified (IP=0.0.0.0).
default-remote-port - Remote log server UDP port. Used when remote logging is enabled but no UDP port of the remote server is specified (UDP=0).

Individual settings for various logging facilities are in the /system logging facility menu:

[admin@MikroTik] system logging> facility print
  # FACILITY		LOGGING PREFIX		    REMOTE-ADDRESS  REMOTE-PORT
  0 Firewall-Log	none
  1 PPP-Account 	none
  2 PPP-Info		remote			    10.5.13.10	    514
  3 PPP-Error		none
  4 System-Info 	remote			    10.5.13.11	    514
  5 System-Error	remote			    10.5.13.11	    514
  6 System-Warning	local

Logging facility parameters:


facility - (Read-only) Name of the log group.
logging - Type of logging.
prefix - Local log prefix.
remote-address - Remote log server IP address. Used when logging type is remote. If not set, default log server IP address is used
remote-port - Remote log server UDP port. Used when logging type is remote. If not set, default log server UDP port is used.

Types of logging:


local - logs are stored in local log buffer. Local logs can be viewed using /log print command.
none - logs from this source are discarded.
remote - logs are sent to remote log server.

Log Management Examples

Use the /log print command to view the local logs:

[admin@MikroTik] > log print
 TIME		      MESSAGE
 aug/12/2002 16:42:05 user admin logged in via console
 aug/12/2002 16:42:32 user admin logged in from 10.0.0.250 via ftp
 aug/12/2002 16:42:57 user admin logged out from 10.0.0.250 via ftp
 aug/12/2002 16:50:49 user admin logged in from 10.0.0.250 via telnet
 aug/12/2002 19:20:53 user admin logged in via web
 aug/12/2002 19:23:10 route changed by admin
 aug/12/2002 19:23:22 route changed by admin
 aug/12/2002 19:26:11 route changed
 aug/12/2002 19:26:28 route changed
 aug/12/2002 19:37:13 added prefix-list by admin
 aug/12/2002 19:38:48 pool a added
 aug/12/2002 19:39:00 pool a removed
 aug/12/2002 19:39:11 pool a added
-- more

To view complete (not truncated) log lines, use the /log print detail command:

[admin@MikroTik] > log print detail

 time=aug/12/2002 16:42:32
    message="user admin logged in from 10.0.0.250 via ftp"

 time=aug/12/2002 16:42:57
    message="user admin logged out from 10.0.0.250 via ftp"

...


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