Syslog even as an older technology is still required. For machines or appliances that can't (or I don't want to) install XDR (Wazuh, ...) this variant of monitoring is one of fewer ones left.

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Syslog-ng

For syslog I use docker deployment. Probably not the simplest idea, but I'm too lazy to change it at this stage. Below is the docker-compose.yml file and under it you can find the configuration for syslog itself.

services:
  logs:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/syslog-ng:latest
    container_name: logs
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Etc/URC
    volumes:
      - /home/god/config:/config
      - /home/god/data:/var/log
    ports:
      - "10.21.129.21:514:5514/udp"

As a resource for the configuration itself I use syslog-ng and linux man pages.

@version: 4.2
@include "scl.conf"

source s_syslog {
    network( ip("0.0.0.0") transport("udp") port("5514") );
};

# Router
destination d_router { file("/var/log/router.log"); };
filter f_router { host("192.168.0.1") or host("router"); };
log { source(s_syslog); filter(f_router); destination(d_router); };

# Switch
destination d_switch1 { file("/var/log/switch.log"); };
filter f_switch1 { host("192.168.5.2") or host("switch"); };
log { source(s_syslog);  filter(f_switch1); destination(d_switch1); };

# WiFi
destination d_wifi { file("/var/log/wifi.log"); };
filter f_wifi { host("192.168.4.2") or host("wifi"); };
log { source(s_syslog); filter(f_wifi); destination(d_wifi); };

MikroTik

To properly get all logs from the mikrotik (the default configuration does not log everything).

![Mikrotik configuration of system logging with actions, location in the winbox menu, remote action and rule.]](https://www.mitim.net/content/images/20250518100929-Screenshot_2025-05-18_10-08-55.png)

To achieve the same result using console/ssh only use the following sets of commands.

/system/logging/action/add name=syslog target=remote remote=192.168.0
.2 src-address=192.168.0.1 remote-port=514 remote-protocol=udp remote-log-format=default
/system/logging/add action=remote

Debian & Proxmox

For Debian OS (pure debian and proxmox) I run following commands (install rsyslog and set remote address in the configuration).

    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install -y rsyslog
    sudo systemctl enable --now rsyslog
    sudo bash -c '
        echo "" >> /etc/rsyslog.conf
        echo "# Remote system" >> /etc/rsyslog.conf
        echo "*.* @10.21.129.21:514" >> /etc/rsyslog.conf
        systemctl restart rsyslog.service
    '

Docker

Since docker is also capable of logging to remote server, here is the configuration based on docker documentation, which I use.

    sudo tee /etc/docker/daemon.json <<EOF
{
    "ipv6": false,
    "log-driver": "syslog",
    "log-opts": {
      "syslog-address": "udp://10.21.129.21:514"
    }
}
EOF
    sudo systemctl restart docker

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This post was written without the help of AI.

Virtualization security syslog virtualization virtual machine cyber security docker mikrotik proxmox debian