Configure a dedicated log server on RHEL

Configure a dedicated log server on RHEL to store all IBM® Spectrum Cluster Foundation Community Edition management node and compute node log messages.

About this task

By default, the IBM Spectrum Cluster Foundation Community Edition management node is set as the log server. All messages that are logged from compute nodes are forwarded to the management node.

You can set a dedicated log server in the cluster. In this way, all log messages from the management and compute nodes are forwarded to the dedicated log server. A dedicated log server identifies which messages come from which nodes to easily analyze problems.

Procedure

Modify the /etc/rsyslog.conf file on the management node. Add the following line at the end of the file: *.* @172.20.7.35 This line sets the log server to the node with the specified IP address.
Make configuration changes take effect.
```
/etc/init.d/rsyslog restart
```
Note: You can also set a logging server by specifying the node name. If you use a node name instead of an IP address, make sure that the node name is resolvable.
Check that your changes are applied by sending a test log:
```
logger -t 'LOGTEST' -p local3.info 'Testing the rsyslog forwarding...'
```
Note: Make sure that the dedicated logging server is enabled to receive syslog from the UDP port 514. If you are going to setup a log server based on the RHEL operating system, ensure that the following lines are found in the rsyslog.conf file:
```
$ModLoad imudp
$UDPServerRun 514
```
Note: After above configuration, by default, all messages are logged to IBM Spectrum Cluster Foundation Community Edition management node and dedicated log server at the same time. If you do not want all messages logged to the management node, remove all the configuration items in /etc/rsyslog.conf related to local log files. Only keep the log forward line *.* @<log-server-IP-address>. Next, restart the rsyslog service by running the /etc/init.d/rsyslog restart command.