Logging to the System Logger in Bash

Gregg

If you are writing a shell script and want any messages to appear in the system logger you can just use the logger command to do this.

Here is an example on my Slackware system:

$ logger -t TEST "This is a test message" $ cat /var/log/messages cat: /var/log/messages: Permission denied $ su - Password: # cat /var/log/messages Aug 23 17:44:47 slackbook TEST: This is a test message

You can also log to systemd by providing a parameter to logger:

logger --journald <<end MESSAGE_ID=67feb6ffbaf24c5cbec13c008dd72309 MESSAGE=The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on. DOGS=bark CARAVAN=goes on end

or you can optionally provide a file whose contents will be logged:

logger --journald=entry.txt

See the logger manpage for additional information.