Re: Bug report: rsyslog 8.2212.0-1~bpo11+1 changes syslog date format, breaks logging to /var/log/messages

On Thu, 23 Feb 2023 at 15:59:13 +0000, Christian Hoffmann wrote:
> the package upgrade from rsyslog package
> version 8.2208.0-1~bpo11+1 to 8.2212.0-1~bpo11+1 has changed the date and
> time format of syslog entries 

According to the changelog, that was an intentional change, switching
to the upstream default logging format (see also
<https://bugs.debian.org/475303>).

> and there's no further logging to /var/log/messages

According to the changelog, that was an intentional change, to
close <https://bugs.debian.org/580552>. /var/log/messages was always
somewhat misleading, because it received medium-priority messages but
not high-priority messages, which seems like an odd thing to want. Making
it more comprehensive would have made it a duplicate of /var/log/syslog.

As far as I understand backports policy, it wouldn't necessarily be
considered valid for the maintainer of a rsyslog backport to revert
those changes: we don't have a way to get backports of new upstream
versions without also getting any behaviour changes that came along
with them.

    smcv
    (neither the maintainer of rsyslog nor the maintainer of its backport)