While no dates are set to stone yet, we expect a couple of syslog-ng releases in the near future. As version 4.8.1 is used in major Linux distributions and has a couple of known bugs, we will release 4.8.2 to address those. However, we are also working on 4.9.0, which will bring many changes. Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/a-call-for-testing-the-upcoming-syslog-ng-releases syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
This week I am talking to Timothy Pearson of Raptor Engineering. He is behind the Talos II and Blackbird boards for IBM POWER9 CPUs. His major claim is creating the first fully owner controlled general purpose computer in a long while. My view of the Talos II and Blackbird systems is that these boards helped to revitalize the open source ecosystem around POWER more than any other efforts (See also: https://peter.| peter.czanik.hu
My favorite and most used service for developers is the openSUSE Build Service (OBS). This is where I build syslog-ng packages first, before anywhere else. OBS is open source, highly flexible software to build software packages, and the instance at https://build.opensuse.org/ is free to use for anyone to build open source software. Best of all, it supports multiple architectures, including POWER. Open Build Service Actually the OBS acronym stands for two things.| peter.czanik.hu
I’m happy to announce that I became an IBM Power Champion for the year 2022. This blog is long overdue, however with the conflict raging in our neighbor country, Ukraine, I just did not feel the strength to write about anything. In this blog I try to introduce myself and share my plans for this year. But before doing so, let me share my new badge with you: IBM Champion 2022 badge My background My title at work is “Open Source Evangelist” and Power does not appear anywhere in my job desc...| peter.czanik.hu
Last week, I posted about running nightly syslog-ng container images on arm64. However, you can also install syslog-ng directly on the host (in my case, a Raspberry Pi 3), running the latest Raspberry OS. Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/installing-nightly-syslog-ng-arm64-packages-on-a-raspberry-pi syslog-ng logo| Random thoughts of Peter 'CzP' Czanik
On this day in 1943 Vangelis was born. The very first CD I bought over three decades ago was composed by him: Chariots of Fire. After so many years, I still love his music. My Vangelis collection As you can see, I do not have everything by him. I do not like his earliest and latest works that much, but almost everything in between. Unfortunately I could not find everything on CD.| peter.czanik.hu
Last December, the CD shop where I bought most of my collection closed its doors for good. I had seen it coming — the owner had been gradually winding down the business in preparation for retirement — but after nearly 30 years of shopping there, it was still a tough moment. Stereo logo This logo belongs to Periferic Records - Stereo Kft.. Back in the nineties, during my university years, I used to look for this logo at concerts, always hoping to spot a bearded man selling an incredible se...| peter.czanik.hu
Recently we enabled nightly syslog-ng builds and container builds for arm64. It means that from now on, you can run the latest syslog-ng on 64bit ARM platforms. For this test, I used a Raspberry Pi 3 running the latest Raspberry Pi OS. As I use Podman everywhere else (I am an openSUSE / Fedora guy), I also installed it here for container management. Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/nightly-arm64-syslog-ng-container-builds-are-now-available syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
For many years, the development of syslog-ng happened on the master branch in Git. However, if you follow that branch, you might have noticed that there has not been much activity on it lately. That is because we introduced a new branch in git called “develop”. https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/introducing-the-develop-branch-of-the-syslog-ng-git-repo syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
The March syslog-ng newsletter is now on-line: Test syslog-ng on EPEL 10! Collecting Active Roles logs centrally using the syslog-ng Windows Agent syslog-ng OSE 4.8.1 is now in EPEL 10, quick fix for Elasticsearch It is available at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/the-syslog-ng-insider-2025-03-epel-10-elasticsearch-active-roles syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
Last weekend, I was welcomed to a special event in an industrial area of Budapest. Zsolt Audio – one of the best known high-end audio manufacturers in Hungary – turns 40 this year, and Zsolt Huszti, the founder, started a series of events celebrating this in the showroom next to his “factory”. We listened to some fun stories from the past 40 years, and also to music on some of his latest devices.| Random thoughts of Peter 'CzP' Czanik
If you read only one long article this month, it should be The Anti-Social Century by the The Atlantic. I planned to write about tribalism for a long time, as it bothers me a lot and often puts me in trouble. Unfortunately, most people think in tribes, such as “I’m a Democrat”, “I’m a Republican”, or “You’re either with us, or against us”. Something similar also exists here in Hungary. When I agree with something that others also support, those people think that I belong to ...| Random thoughts of Peter 'CzP' Czanik
In my previous OneIdentity Active Roles blog, you learned how to forward Active Roles logs to a central syslog-ng server to parse and store the logs. In this blog, I’ll show you how to: Work with parsed Active Roles logs. Store logs to various document stores. Prepare long-term storage. Send alerts for some critical events. Even if this blog about commercial software, the name-value pairs concept I describe in this blog in depth is the same in the open source syslog-ng.| peter.czanik.hu
This week, I reorganized the speakers in my room and wanted to test the change by listening to a wide variety of music. The first piece that came to my mind was “Rhapsody in Blue” by Gershwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_in_Blue, as I have a fantastic recording of it made by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. That said, I know that I’m not a music maniac enough, as I do not have it on vinyl, but rather as a digital download from HDTracks: https://www.| peter.czanik.hu
During CES Nvidia announced a new AI desktop supercomputer: Project DIGITS. Starting at $3000 it puts AI processing capabilities on the desktop what just recently needed multiple servers and a few more zeroes at the end of the price tag. As an IBM Champion for POWER my first thought was that Project DIGITS is nice, but I’d love to see something based on POWER. Of course it’s just a game of thoughts, as IBM left the workstation business many years ago, both for x86 and POWER.| Random thoughts of Peter 'CzP' Czanik
One Identity Active Roles allows you to easily and securely manage Active Directory (AD), Entra ID and M365 Identity objects. While Active Roles stores its log messages into Windows Event Log, most log management and log analytics applications expect to receive log messages over the syslog protocol. This is where syslog-ng Premium Edition (PE) can help you. The syslog-ng Windows Agent can collect and forward Active Roles log messages from Windows Event Log, while the syslog-ng server can coll...| peter.czanik.hu
When I like a song and learn that it is actually a soundtrack of a movie, I usually look it up on IMDB. Often it belongs to a romantic movie, a super hero movie from Marvel or a TV show. In these cases I do not look any further. But sometimes I get curious while reading the plot or watching the trailer. I’ve found many good movies based on the soundtrack.| peter.czanik.hu
This year, I was back in Brussels. I visited two conferences: CentOS Connect and FOSDEM. As usual, both events were fantastic, with great talks and nice people. And as usual, they were also exhausting and not just for introverts like me. I stayed to Belgium to recover, but that’s another story… :-) CentOS Connect Some people still ask me why I visit Red Hat events, especially because I am a proud openSUSE desktop user, while FreeBSD feels the closest to me when it comes to software design...| peter.czanik.hu
Those who follow me on LinkedIn might have seen an automatic post about my work anniversary. Well, almost nothing of that post is true, but I still consider it to be my real starting date. However, the official date is also impressive: 11.5 years, almost three times the industry average spent at the same workplace. So, why do I say that the LinkedIn post is not true? Well, because all its major facts are wrong.| peter.czanik.hu
The December syslog-ng newsletter is now on-line: A syslog-ng container image based on Alpine Linux Call for testing: syslog-ng in openSUSE Leap 16.0 Experimental syslog-ng container image based on Alma Linux It is available at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/the-syslog-ng-insider-2025-01-alpine-linux-leap-16-0-alma-linux syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
Yes, I know. Bad title. After so many years only a handful of people will decipher it that I am looking for an affordable and standards compliant ARM machine for Linux & FreeBSD. It refers to a machine released 8 years ago, and a blog I wrote 4 years ago: The ARM developers workstation: Why the SoftIron OverDrive 1000 is still relevant The good news is that since my previous blog there is a lot more ARM hardware available.| Random thoughts of Peter 'CzP' Czanik
Last December, I added support for EPEL 10 in my unofficial syslog-ng Git snapshot repository. This week, I call for testing the official syslog-ng EPEL 10 package. Once I saw in my unofficial syslog-ng repo that syslog-ng compiles fine on EPEL 10, I also started to work on the official package. I hit a roadblock immediately: ivykis (a mandatory dependency of syslog-ng) was missing from EPEL 10. So, right before the Christmas holidays, I submitted two missing dependencies I maintain (ivykis a...| peter.czanik.hu
CentOS Stream 10 and EPEL 10 just became available, and as usual, I tried to build syslog-ng as soon as possible. For now it is available in my git snapshot repository, but I am also planning to make it available in EPEL 10 soon. Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/test-syslog-ng-on-epel-10 syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
Recently I was asked why the syslog-ng newsletter looks odd. At first I did not even understand what is the problem. Then I realized that I kept using the same format for the past 14 years, that was optimized for UNIX terminals :-) So, what is the problem? 14 years ago I was kindly asked by syslog-ng users to use plain text e-mails instead of HTML formatting. Of course it also means that there is no easy way to emphasize titles in the newsletter.| peter.czanik.hu
The December syslog-ng newsletter is now on-line: FreeBSD audit source for syslog-ng Version 4.8.1 of syslog-ng is now available Where should I present syslog-ng and sudo? It is available at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/the-syslog-ng-insider-2024-12-freebsd-audit-4-8-1-conferences syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
Last week I introduced you to my latest project: a syslog-ng container based on Alma Linux. This week I added a syslog-ng Prometheus exporter to the container, so you can also monitor syslog-ng, if you enable it. syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
The official syslog-ng container image is based on Debian Stable. However, we’ve been getting requests for an RPM-based image for many years. So, I made an initial version available based on Alma Linux and now I need your feedback about it! This image uses the “init” variant of Alma Linux 9 containers as a base image. What does this mean? Well, it uses systemd service management inside, making it possible to run multiple services from a single container.| peter.czanik.hu
The November syslog-ng newsletter is now on-line: A call for syslog-ng testing Working with Quickwit Huge improvements for syslog-ng in MacPorts It is available at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/the-syslog-ng-insider-2024-11-testing-quickwit-macports syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
Last week, I submitted syslog-ng to openSUSE Leap 16.0. While the distro is still in a pre-alpha stage, everything already works for me as expected. Well, except for syslog-ng, where I found a number of smaller problems. As such, this blog is a call for testing, both for syslog-ng on openSUSE Leap 16.0 and also for the distribution itself. Read the rest at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/call-for-testing-syslog-ng-in-opensuse-leap-16-0 syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
Recently, someone suggested I should check out Alpine Linux and prepare a syslog-ng container image based on it. While not supported by the syslog-ng project, an Alpine-based syslog-ng container image already exist as part of the Linuxserver project. Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/a-syslog-ng-container-image-based-on-alpine-linux syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
Recently I posted about two of my Power t-shirts. Many people responded. Some wanted to get one of the t-shirts from me, others asked me what else do I have. I cannot give you the t-shirts, but I can show you a few more :-) I must admit that only one of them has Power printed on it, but the other two are also Power-related. Genesi t-shirt The oldest t-shirt is from Genesi.| peter.czanik.hu
Recently I was asked the same question both at my workplace and at EuroBSDCon, the conference where I was presenting: where do you talk next? I had no definite answer. Of course, I am looking forward to the FOSDEM CfP, but I am also looking for new conferences to present syslog-ng and sudo. Do you have any recommendations? You can read the rest of my blog at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/where-should-i-present-syslog-ng-and-sudo syslog-ng logo Sudo logo| peter.czanik.hu
I love t-shirts, especially those that you’d call logowear. But it’s not the kind of big name fashion logos that I’m referring to. Rather, it’s logowear from my favorite IT companies. I have well over a hundred of these t-shirts, and except when I’m preparing for a special event, I pull a random t-shirt from my collection. Yesterday I happened to wear a power.org t-shirt, while today I’m wearing an OpenPOWER t-shirt, two POWER t-shirts in two days :-) Both of these brought back so...| peter.czanik.hu
The September syslog-ng newsletter is now available: Improved FreeBSD and MacOS support in 4.8.0 Setting the version number in the syslog-ng configuration Switching containers from Debian Testing to Stable You can read it at: https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/the-syslog-ng-insider-2024-10-4-8-0-release-version-number-debian-stable syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
Version 4.8.1 of syslog-ng was released last week. It is a bugfix release, and it contains fixes for problems also reported by members of the Fedora community. The Fedora 41 release is near, so package updates now need some additional testing, and “karma” in Bodhi. You can find information on how to install syslog-ng 4.8.1 from a testing repo on Fedora 41 beta at https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2024-4e812b8a23. This is also the place where you can provide feedback and karma.| peter.czanik.hu
This weekend I visited the first Audio Expo in Budapest. It was the first music event I truly enjoyed in years. Even if corridors and rooms were packed, there was enough fresh air. What sets this event apart from other events is the focus on listening to music on the vendors’ products rather than just the speeds and feeds on why you should buy their products. While, of course, the expected outcome is the same, with the emphasis on listening to live systems, I found the event much more comfo...| peter.czanik.hu
Two weeks ago, I was at EuroBSDcon and received a feature request for syslog-ng. The user wanted to collect FreeBSD audit logs together with other logs using syslog-ng. Writing a native driver in C is time consuming. However, creating an integration based on the program() source of syslog-ng is not that difficult. This blog shows you the current state of the FreeBSD audit source, how it works, and its limitations. It is also a request for feedback.| peter.czanik.hu
Recently I was at EuroBSDCon, where several participants recognized that I am a POWER guy. And they were right, I have been an IBM POWER Champion focusing on open source software on POWER for the past three years. Talos II POWER9 mainboard I got the usual question from people: is there anyone working on an affordable and open source friendly POWER machine? My answer was a definite yes, but also had to admit that I do not know the actual status for any of the projects.| peter.czanik.hu
EuroBSDCon was fantastic, as always :-) I talked to many interesting people during the four days about sudo and syslog-ng, and of course also about many other topics. I gave a sudo tutorial, and it went well, with some “students” already planning which features to implement at home. There were many good talks, including one from Dr. Marshall Kirk McKusick, who was with the FreeBSD project right from the beginning, and worked on BSD even earlier.| peter.czanik.hu
Last week I wrote about a campaign that we started to resolve issues on GitHub. Some of the fixes are coming from our enthusiastic community. Thanks to this, there is a new syslog-ng-devel port in MacPorts, where you can enable almost all syslog-ng features even for older MacOS versions and PowerPC hardware. Some of the freshly enabled modules include support for Kafka, GeoIP or OpenTelemetry. From this blog entry, you can learn how to install a legacy or an up-to-date syslog-ng version from ...| peter.czanik.hu
Sudo 1.9.16 is now out, containing mostly bug fixes. However, there are also some new features, like the json_compact option I wrote about a while ago. The other major change is, secure_path is now enabled by default in the sudoers file, and there is a new option to fine-tune its content. Read more at https://www.sudo.ws/posts/2024/09/why-sudo-1.9.16-enables-secure_path-by-default/ Sudo logo| peter.czanik.hu
The September syslog-ng newsletter is now on-line: You can also contribute to the syslog-ng OSE documentation The $TRANSPORT macro of syslog-ng Rolling RPM platforms added to the syslog-ng package build system It is available at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/the-syslog-ng-insider-2024-09-documentation-transport-macro-rolling-rpms syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
Last time we looked at how syslog-ng can send logs to Quickwit using its Elasticsearch compatible API. This time we are going to look at how to use the OpenTelemetry protocol to send logs to Quickwit with syslog-ng. Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/sending-logs-to-quickwit-using-the-opentelemetry-destination-of-syslog-ng syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
We are always looking for new ways to store log messages. Quickwit is a new contender, designed for log storage, and among others, it also provides an Elasticsearch-compatible API. From this blog, you can learn about Quickwit, and how to forward log messages from syslog-ng to it using the Elasticsearch-compatible API. Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/first-steps-with-quickwit-and-syslog-ng syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
For many years, the official syslog-ng container and development containers were based on Debian Testing. We are switching to Debian Stable now. Learn about the history and the reasons for the change now. Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/we-are-switching-syslog-ng-containers-from-debian-testing-to-stable syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
The August syslog-ng newsletter is now on-line: Version 4.8.0 of syslog-ng improves FreeBSD and MacOS support syslog-ng Prometheus exporter Experimental syslog-ng packages for Amazon Linux 2023 It is available at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/the-syslog-ng-insider-2024-08-4-8-0-release-prometheus-amazon-linux syslog-ng logo| peter.czanik.hu
A few weeks ago I was in Lille, France for Pass the SALT, a conference focused on open-source software and security, and gave a training on sudo. Ever since the conference, I’ve been approached by people asking if I could give sudo training(s) for or through their organization. Instead of writing a short answer to everyone in private, here is more detailed public response. The short answer: it depends :-)| peter.czanik.hu
I’m often asked, how can I be an IBM Champion for POWER, if I do not own an IBM POWER server or workstation. Yes, life would definitely be easier if I had one. However, I have an over 30 years history with POWER, and there are some fantastic resources available to developers for free. Both help me to stay an active member of the IBM POWER open source community. Talos II POWER9 mainboard Last time I introduced you to the openSUSE Build Service.| peter.czanik.hu
I love high performance computers, and some of my best friends work in high performance computing (HPC). Obviously, sometimes we also talk about logging. Recently we not just talked, but I also helped Gábor in his first steps with syslog-ng. He summarized his experiences in a blog: Logs are one of those indispensable things in IT when things go wrong. Having worked in technical support for software products in a past life, I’ve likely looked at hundreds (or more) logs over the years, helpi...| peter.czanik.hu
I love music. My family, friends, colleagues love music. I am in quite a few music-related Facebook groups. A returning question everywhere in the past couple of weeks in various wordings was: what are the five albums you would bring to a desert island? This list is of course changing almost each and every year. And also depends on the number of albums, and if live concert recordings, “best of”, etc.| peter.czanik.hu
This is my last blog for 2023, Budapest time. However, it might already be the first blog of the year from me, if you live in Japan or New Zealand :-) This time it’s a single song: “Happy new year” from ABBA (and from me :-) ). TIDAL: https://listen.tidal.com/album/575781/track/575787| peter.czanik.hu
If it’s Christmas, then for many people it means watching Home alone. Related memes have appeared in social media already in the summer: “100 more days before you watch Home Alone again” ;-) Well, I do not recall when I watched it for the last time, so probably not in the past decade… However, even I know that the most famous song from the movie is Carol of the Bells. I was surprised to hear how many musicians make a cover of a song from a film.| peter.czanik.hu
One of my favorite instruments is the church organ. A few weeks ago we already listened to organ and drums, but those were just covers of some popular songs. However, the church organ is also used in original music, including some really well-known songs. Next to Bach, probably the best-known appearance of a church organ is in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. As a kid, first, I copied it from vinyl to tape, after which I also bought it on CD.| peter.czanik.hu
One of my favorite albums is Vedres Csaba és a Kairosz kvartett – Áldott Idő / Blessed Time. It was made by Hungarian pianist Csaba Vedres, who worked together with a string quartet. Their music taught me that string quartets playing alone, with a piano, or with any other instrument can do some fantastic music. The band was founded by Csaba Vedres, who had a classical music education. Besides playing the piano, he also researched the topic of classical vs.| peter.czanik.hu
In the first part of my music recommendation blog series I mentioned that many people turn to me for some less mainstream music. For quite a long time I thought that listening to cellos playing metal is already something niche. Then it turned out that many people around me love this kind of music. Recently I found something really niche: church organ and drums :-) I love the sound of the church organ.| peter.czanik.hu
I love the melodies of Metallica songs. However, I strongly prefer instrumental music. That’s why I was very happy, when someone brought Apocalyptica to my attention: they played Metallica on four cellos. Over the years I discovered that metal or any other music sounds nice on cellos, as I learned about two more bands: 2cellos and Mozart Heroes. But I should not rush so far ahead. In the year 2000 someone introduced me to Metallica.| peter.czanik.hu
As you might have guessed from my previous blog posts: I love music. Colleagues, family, and friends often turn to me for suggestions if they want to listen to something new and less mainstream. This blog is about music I listen to, the first part of what will hopefully become a series. I hope you also find something interesting here! Why did I pick “Pictures at an Exhibition” when I talk about “less mainstream” music in the opening paragraph?| peter.czanik.hu
All Things Open (ATO) is one of my favorite conferences. This week I had the privilege to be in Raleigh, NC for the third time, and give a talk at the conference for the fourth time. I participated not just ATO, but the Community Leadership Summit. Both events were fantastic. I learned a lot, and also realized that many others have the very same problems as I have. I also had a slight overdose of AI :-)| peter.czanik.hu
Recently, I was looking for some new hybrid / crossover music, and someone recommended me to check out Hidden Orchestra. Listening to their album, “Creaks” was an instant love. As I learned later, it’s the music of a game. I’m not a gamer, but once seeing that it’s on sale on Humble Bundle I bought it immediately. You can listen to the whole album here: You can also find it on Bandcamp.| peter.czanik.hu
Recently I found that quite a few of my Twitter and Mastodon followers are working in high-performance computing (HPC). At first I was surprised because I’m not a HPC person, even if I love high performance computers. Then I realized that there are quite few overlaps, and one of my best friends is also deeply involved in HPC. My work, logging, is also a fundamental part of HPC environments. Let’s start with a direct connection to HPC: one of my best friends, Gabor Samu, is working in HPC.| peter.czanik.hu
Last weekend I was in Vienna for EuroBSDcon, an event where BSD users are gathering from Europe (and all around the world). And while you could follow the event online, to me, the greatest value of the conference was not in the talks themselves (not to lessen their value of course, as they were fantastic) but rather in meeting people during the hallway session. The line-up consisted of sudo and syslog-ng users, BSD users and developers, and even some people from history books :-)| peter.czanik.hu
I worked from home all my life, or at least that’s what I thought. Recently I learned that what do is actually called “hybrid” work. I do most of my work from home, however I also regularly visit the office. I can work a lot more efficiently at home, so, I work from there. Once a week I’m at the office where I do not progress that well with my tasks.| peter.czanik.hu
The first week of the COVID lockdown, back in March 2020, a journalist friend of mine started a Hungarian Facebook group to share work from home experiences. As I have worked from home all my life (except for two weeks), I wrote a long post about my experiences and thoughts. 2.5 years later, my post still receives some occasional likes, and someone even quoted from it – without naming the source :/ You can read the English version of my original Facebook post below.| peter.czanik.hu
“Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds” has been a turning point in my life in many ways. It was one of the first non-classical albums I listened to. It was the starting point in my ability to understand spoken English. The first steps from classical My parents only listen to classical music. Even Bartók is too modern for them. In my household growing up, I was only exposed to classical music.| peter.czanik.hu
Last week I became a Discogs user. Why? I have been browsing the site for years to find information on albums. Recently I also needed a solution to create an easy to access database of my CD/DVD collection. Right now I am not interested in the marketplace function of Discogs, but that might change in the long term :-) Information overload For many years when I searched for an album, the first few hits were from YouTube and Wikipedia.| peter.czanik.hu