Lucas Werkmeister <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>> Moreover, --detach completely dissociates the process from the
>> original set of standard file descriptors by first closing them and
>> then connecting it to "/dev/null", so it will be nonsense to use this
>> new option with it.
>
> Ah, I wasn’t aware of that – so with --detach, --no-syslog would be
> better described as “disables all logging” rather than “log to stderr
> instead”. IMHO it would still make sense to have the --no-syslog option
> (then mainly for use with --inetd) as long as its interaction with
> --inetd is properly documented.
Because "--detach --no-syslog" is a roundabout way to ask for
sending the log to _nowhere_, I actually would say that "nonsense"
is a bit too strong a word for the combination of your thing with
"--detach".
It might make more sense to introduce a new "--send-log-to=<dest>"
option, where the destination can be one of: syslog, stderr, none.
The you can make the current "--syslog" option a synonym to
"--send-log-to=syslog". The internal variable log_syslog would
probably become
enum log_destination {
LOG_TO_NONE = -1,
LOG_TO_STDERR = 0,
LOG_TO_SYSLOG = 1,
} log_destination;
and wherever the current code assigns 1 to log_syslog, you would be
setting it LOG_TO_SYSLOG.
Then those who want no log can express that wish in a more direct
way, i.e. "daemon --send-log-to=none", perhaps.
Such an approach leaves open room for future enhancement. It is not
too far-fetched to imagine something like:
git daemon --send-log-to=/var/log/git-daemon.log
by introducing the fourth value to "enum log_destination"; perhaps
the file is opened and connected to stderr to accept the logs,
combined with a new feature that tells the daemon to close and
reopen the log file when it receives a HUP or something like that.
