syslog-ng : Log Server made Easy

Syslog has been around for some time – however it can be painful if you have logs on every machine – and need to keep bouncing around to find logs w/ similar threads across machines.   – even worse if a machine crashes and you want to review what was going on prior to the crash…

Install Syslog-NG in debian

apt-get install syslog-ng
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
libevtlog0
The following packages will be REMOVED:
rsyslog
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libevtlog0 syslog-ng
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 148kB of archives.
After this operation, 24.6kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
Get:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main libevtlog0 0.2.8~1-2 [9358B]
Get:2 http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main syslog-ng 2.0.9-4.1 [139kB]
Fetched 148kB in 0s (246kB/s)
(Reading database … 38087 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing rsyslog …
Stopping enhanced syslogd: rsyslogd.
Processing triggers for man-db …
Selecting previously deselected package libevtlog0.
(Reading database … 38069 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libevtlog0 (from …/libevtlog0_0.2.8~1-2_amd64.deb) …
Selecting previously deselected package syslog-ng.
Unpacking syslog-ng (from …/syslog-ng_2.0.9-4.1_amd64.deb) …
Processing triggers for man-db …
Setting up libevtlog0 (0.2.8~1-2) …
Setting up syslog-ng (2.0.9-4.1) …

Configuration file `/etc/init.d/syslog-ng’
==> File on system created by you or by a script.
==> File also in package provided by package maintainer.
What would you like to do about it ?  Your options are:
Y or I  : install the package maintainer’s version
N or O  : keep your currently-installed version
D     : show the differences between the versions
Z     : background this process to examine the situation
The default action is to keep your current version.
*** syslog-ng (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? n

This will complete the installation process.