Adiscon (rsyslog’s main sponsor) has joined connect.IT Heilbronn-Franken. Short version: I want more first-hand input from real deployments in AI, logging, and security. Local practitioners have plenty of it. Turning those lessons into clear guidance helps the global rsyslog community. Simple.
Continue reading “Adiscon joins connect.IT Heilbronn-Franken”Why We Built a Second rsyslog AI Assistant — and What It Means
A few days ago, we posted the short announcement on the project site:
👉 New rsyslog AI Assistant — powered by DigitalOcean Gradient
This is the longer story: the plan, the first results, and what we think is sensible to do next.
Looking for an Alternative to Kiwi Syslog? Try WinSyslog.
I’ve been getting a steady stream of questions from admins searching for a dependable Windows syslog server. Many of them mention frustration with recent Kiwi Syslog versions — unclear message parsing, configuration quirks, or just a feeling that things have become harder than they should be. There seems to be especially a lot of frustration with the “Kiwi Syslog Server NG” version, based on the emails I receive.
Since the topic keeps coming up, let me share the same recommendation I give privately. If you’re currently evaluating syslog solutions, this detailed comparison between WinSyslog and Kiwi Syslog Server covers the technical differences and can help inform your decision.
Continue reading “Looking for an Alternative to Kiwi Syslog? Try WinSyslog.”From Stream to Lake: Thinking About rsyslog as the River System Behind Your Data
I recently had a discussion about data lakes. It made me realize that people often picture them as the starting point of data collection — as if all information somehow appears in the lake. In reality, no lake exists without rivers. And in the world of IT systems, rsyslog is part of that river system.
Revisiting old style Windows Log Schema Mapping
Windows logs provide a wealth of information that must be made usable for Observability. As you may know, I work on normalizing these logs for quite some while, I even created liblognorm for that purpose. Ingesting them properly is important for schema mapping, e.g. to Elastic Cloud.
Continue reading “Revisiting old style Windows Log Schema Mapping”Outdated readthedocs problem solved!
I am glad to tell that I finally managed to solve an issue that caused confusion for years. Someone had cloned and published the rsyslog documentation at readthedocs. Unfortunately, it was not maintained afterwards and also looked like an official rsyslog doc. That added a lot to the “rsyslog’s doc is bad and inconsistent” feel inside the community. This could now be resolved, and current, official doc is now available at readthedocs. I am very happy and glad for readthedocs staff members who helped us to finally resolve the issue.
Status update: omhttp, CI, backlog, and containers
Time goes fast, it is Sep 10 already. Mid August I said we will do a great refactoring of omhttp within a week or two. Well, that did not work out as planned. We still made solid progress, but more pressing work put it on hold for a bit. Time for a small update of what is happening in rsyslog.
rsyslog becoming target for social engineering PRs? Lessons learned.
In the past days I noticed PR patterns that do not look right. This is a smell, not a verdict. The upside is real: rsyslog is interesting enough to attract attention. That is actually great news. Now we have the problem ourselves, and that is the moment to engineer the right guardrails without losing our welcoming tone. You need to be a target in order to gain sufficient experience to tackle that hard problem.
Sluggish Responses – And How We Plan to Do Better
TL;DR
- My responses to PRs and issues were sluggish, especially during the pandemic. I am sorry, and thank you for sticking with us.
- We aim for reasonable, not instant, turnaround.
- Expect a quick maintainer look at every PR within 3 business days.
- Full review typically follows once CI is green and AI review items are addressed or explained.
- We will not mass-close old issues. We are revisiting them with AI assist and closing for the right reasons.
- We are formalizing labels and dashboards to make navigation easier. Details will follow in a short, separate post.
- Suggestions are welcome.
I want to be very honest with you: my responses to pull requests and issues have been sluggish for quite some time. This affected the whole rsyslog project, because in the end it always comes back to the limited capacity of the maintainers – and most often, that means me.
We are working hard to change this. It will not mean ultra-fast turnaround times, but it will mean reasonable turnaround times. We have already made important steps, and AI will play a key role in improving this going forward. Still, this is work in progress, and I welcome your suggestions.
Continue reading “Sluggish Responses – And How We Plan to Do Better”An old and possibly important text rediscovered…
Seventeen years old, raw “armchair philosophy” — but surprisingly close to what I still believe today.
While reflecting on my current work, I remembered a text I had written in April 2008 during a discussion with a friend in biology. It’s an unfinished “armchair philosophy” piece — raw, dense, and hard to read — but it still reflects many of my core beliefs about IT systems. I’m publishing it unchanged as an archival entry, because the foundations it sketches are still relevant today.
Continue reading “An old and possibly important text rediscovered…”