Every minute, your routers, switches, printers, firewalls, and more are sending syslog messages regarding their activity and overall functioning. To collect—and make sense—of these messages requires the use of a syslog server. With so many syslog servers on the market, finding the right one for your IT team depends on the size of your company, so I’ve built this list of free syslog server tools and some of their paid counterparts.
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- Syslog Server Mac Free Download
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My favorite? When it comes to performance, SolarWinds® Kiwi Syslog® Server free and paid solutions offer robust, comprehensive management of syslog messages through real-time statistics and alerts as well as an intuitive web console. Kiwi offers a free syslog tool that’s a limited version of its commercial version. It allows you to collect, view, and archive syslog message and SNMP traps for up to five sources. And if you need to monitor more than five devices, you can easily upgrade to the commercial edition. The paid version also has a free 30-day trial, so you can test it on all your network devices to see if it’s the best syslog server for your company.
Windows TFTP utility Lightweight free TFTP server with the advantage of being fast at transferring small files. TFTPD32 A package of useful network monitors that includes a DHCP server monitor, a DNS monitor, and a Syslog server as well as a TFTP server software. Progress WhatsUp Free TFTP server Smart-looking front-end that interfaces to an.
Best FREE Syslog Servers
- I have many devices from which I want to get logs using a syslog server hosted on my iMac. To get in touch with logs and analyse them, I am looking for a good syslog viewer for mac which have the following functionalities: color log by level; stats & graphs; send mail and alert.
- Download and install SolarWinds® Kiwi Syslog Server Commercial Edition to get unlimited listening. Kiwi Syslog Server Free Edition 100% Free. Kiwi Syslog Server Starts at null. Listen to routers, firewalls, computers, and more. Collect and archive syslog messages and SNMP traps.
Kiwi Syslog Server – Free Edition
The free edition of Kiwi Syslog Server from SolarWinds is, in my opinion, the best free syslog server for companies in need of monitoring messages from a few devices (the tool can handle up to five).
With this tool in hand, you’ll receive centralized management of syslog messages and SNMP traps, be empowered to view and respond to messages, and even be able to archive messages and facilitate the compliance process. The free Kiwi Syslog Server also provides real-time statistics and daily statistic summaries so IT teams can keep their finger on the pulse of all activity. As far as free syslog servers go, this is by far the most comprehensive on the market.
If you’re looking to put a little spend behind your syslog server, the paid version of SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server can go a long way. In my view, Kiwi Syslog Server is not only the best syslog server for Cisco devices, but also a great syslog server Windows users within my community have come to rely on.
You can set custom alerting thresholds to monitor your entire IT infrastructure, all within one intuitive console. There are even a host of built-in actions to react to syslog messages, making it easy to trigger notifications and reports, run scripts, or forward syslog messages or SNMP traps to another host. The tool boasts detailed graphs of syslog statistics over designated time periods and automatically stores and archives logs, helping keep you compliant with SOX, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and more.
Paessler PRTG Network Monitor
Like SolarWinds, Paessler offers free and paid tools to help with syslog management through its PRTG network monitoring software. The free version for Windows helps IT teams capture and monitor syslog messages via a syslog receiver sensor and view all relevant information associated with syslog messages, like IP addresses and time of the message, through a single dashboard. From a security standpoint, PRTG will alert users if the contents of a syslog message exceed your predefined threshold values and even offers a ranking system. Messages with a “0” signify an emergency, while a “7” is typically an indication of a minor issue, like a debug. The free version of this software is powerful but can only be leveraged if you have a small network. While it offers extensive capabilities, the program’s functionality has been known to falter.
EZ5 Syslog Watcher
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This free syslog server helps enhance the stability and reliability of your network through its syslog collection, sorting, and analyzing capabilities. It’s a high-performing tool designed to handle a heavy load, processing thousands of messages per minute and offering alerts via email in the event of unusual activity. You can even export syslog messages and data to your database or to a variety of file types, like CSV, XML, or JSON. Overall, it’s a strong tool, especially with its $0 price tag. Just don’t expect the more comprehensive centralization and reporting compliance of paid programs.
Project/Ipswitch WhatsUp Syslog Server
Another free syslog server software, WhatsUp Gold Syslog Server is a straightforward way to manage your syslog needs. It monitors syslog messages and provides real-time views into message data as well as filters to help you sort through the approximately 6,000,000 messages it can process per hour. To help customize your experience, Syslog Server encourages users to create rules for processing, sorting, and receiving syslog message alerts. These features make it easy to stay abreast of network activity and security. Since this is a free tool, the scope of its capabilities are fairly limited, but it’s great for smaller IT teams looking for a simplified syslog message management option.
How Do Syslog Servers Work?
However, to understand syslog servers, we must have a basic understanding of syslog. Syslog, short for System Logging Process, is a universal protocol for system message logging. All network equipment, like routers, switches, printers, workstations, and firewalls, can send syslog messages. These messages keep IT teams informed of all network equipment event activity. The syslog server collects and analyzes thousands of these messages per minute and determines the appropriate course of action. Without these analytic tools, syslog messages often fall through the cracks. This can drastically inhibit your company’s productivity, as you clunk through repairs and issues, and even put sensitive information in jeopardy.
To keep your company safe and on track, I recommend equipping the IT department with a syslog server that offers:
- Consolidation – To boost efficiency, syslog servers should centralize logs from systems and network devices, so you can quickly view syslog messages and pinpoint issues in minutes, not hours.
- Real-Time Alerts – A strong syslog tool will empower you to set predefined criteria for syslog messages based on time, type of message, or source, and alert you when these criteria have been met.
- Remote Capabilities – As an IT professional, you never know when an issue will arise. Staying in tune with your network health at all times, from any location, is essential. Look for a syslog server with a web console you can view when you’re at the office, or while you’re on a business trip.
- Compliance Reporting – Log collection and retention are the mainstays of many compliance frameworks. An advanced syslog server should be equipped to schedule automated log archival and cleanup and generate syslog reports, making it easy to comply with industry standards and keep your company in good standing.
- Sorting – Trying to sift through millions of syslog messages is no easy task. Find a syslog server with advanced filtering, so you can search messages by host name, host IP address, priority, time of day, and more to quickly access the critical data you need.
Depending on the size of your business, many free tools offer robust capabilities that could be just what you’re looking for.
Finding the Syslog Server
Finding the right tool for your company can be overwhelming amidst so many options. I recommend looking for a syslog server that centralizes all network and device logs, offers advancing filtering qualities, alerts you to anomalies, and helps keep you compliant with industry standards. My personal favorite? Both the free and paid version of SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server offer robust, comprehensive syslog message management. Download the free 30-day trial and try it out for yourself.
Additional Resources
4 Best Software Deployment Tools: With the right software deployment tool, you can elevate existing update services, automate deployment tasks, and put security best practices in place. Here’s my list of the top four solutions.
The 'log' section of the radiusd.conf file is where the primary logging configuration for the FreeRADIUS server is located.
Log Destination
Destination for log messages. This can be one of the following values:
- files - log to 'file', as defined below.
- syslog - send log messages to syslog (see also the 'syslog_facility' below).
- stdout - log to standard output.
- stderr - log to standard error.
Note that the command-line debugging option '-X' overrides this option, and forces all logging to go to stdout.
Default:
Log File Location
If the destination 'files', then the logging messages for the server are appended to the tail of this file. Again, note that if the server is running in debugging mode, this file is NOT used.
Default:
Requests Log
If this configuration parameter is set, then log messages for a request go to this file. This is a log file per request, once the server has accepted the request as being from a valid client. Messages that are not associated with a request still go to radius.log defined above.
Note that not all log messages in the server core have been updated to use this new internal API. As a result, some messages will still go to radius.log. Patches are welcome to fix this behavior.
The file name is expanded dynamically. You should ONLY user server-side attributes for the filename, i.e. things you control. Using this feature MAY also slow down the server substantially, especially if you do things like SQL calls as part of the expansion of the filename.
The name of the log file should use attributes that don't change over the lifetime of a request, such as User-Name,Virtual-Server or Packet-Src-IP-Address. Otherwise, the log messages will be distributed over multiple files.
Default (disabled):
Syslog Facility
This option determines which syslog facility to use, if destination 'syslog' The exact values permitted here are OS-dependent.
Default:
Log User-Name Attribute
Log the full User-Name attribute, as it was found in the request. The allowed values are: {no, yes}
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Default:
Log Authentication Requests
Log authentication requests to the log file. The allowed values are: {no, yes}
Default:
Log Passwords
Log passwords with the authentication requests.
- auth_badpass - logs password if it's rejected
- auth_goodpass - logs password if it's correct
The allowed values are: {no, yes}
Default:
Log Additional Text
Log additional text at the end of the 'Login OK' messages. For these to work, the 'auth' and 'auth_goodpass' or 'auth_badpass' configurations above have to be set to 'yes'.
The strings below are dynamically expanded, which means that you can put anything you want in them. However, note that this expansion can be slow, and can negatively impact server performance.
Default (disabled):
Log Additional Debug Information
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Logging can also be enabled for an individual request by a special dynamic expansion macro: %{debug: #}, where # is the debug level for this request (1, 2, 3, etc.). For example:
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The attribute that the value is assigned to is unimportant, and should be a 'throw-away' attribute with no side effects.
For example, in the 'authorize' section: