I’ve just recently blogged about my syslog appliance idea. Now this has become reality. There is the first 0.0.1 version of rsyslog and phplogcon as a virtual appliance.
For starters, I have created a very simple system. While I have a number of options for the operating platform, I started to Ubuntu JeOS mainly because it had good guides for getting started with an appliance quickly. Being based based on Debian also was a plus. Some may argue that the downside is that the log appliance currently requires VMWare. While I agree this may be an issue, it is not an extremely big one especially as VMWare server runs quite well under Linux and is free to use.
I will investigate Red Hat’s AOS, but I think I need to get some results from the app point of view first and JeOS looks quite promising in this regard.
For now, I have even started with the stock rsyslog package, which is quite outdated on that platform. However, I’ll do a couple of iterations in the next days and so will come up to the current release soon. But for what the appliance currently needs, the older version is not really a problem.
I am now very interested in feedback on this new offering. The appliance can be downloaded from
http://www.rsyslog.com/Downloads-req-viewdownloaddetails-lid-136.phtml
One of my next actions is to set up a dedicated site, which will make finding (and providing!) information on the appliance much easier. But one thing after the other…
Oh, and one thing on the licensing: the appliance is free for non-commercial use. However, we intend to request a moderate fee for commercial use, which I think is a fair policy. Of course, all appliance components are freely available.
If you try out the appliance, please provide feedback!. I have set up a dedicated forum at
As I said, the initial version will probably not as “plug and play” as I hope, but I am very positive we are on a good path. Besides, it is an exciting project.