Rudder

rudder-inventory-ldap does not require rsyslog "really". However, slapd (OpenLDAP server) can only log to a syslog server, so it needs a syslog server. So, ideally, the dependency for rudder-inventory-ldap should be changed to say "I require a syslog server". The version doesn't matter. Can you check if the rsyslog/syslog-ng/syslog packages "Provide" a virtual package we could use instead? For SLES, Debian, Ubuntu and RHEL, of course :)

rudder-reports needs rsyslog, actually *r*syslog, not any old syslog, because we have a specific configuration for it. This is where the version dependency is important. This should be clarified via a comment in the packaging.

I'm not sure to understand what is demanded.
rsyslog is different from syslog-ng and there is no virtual package which contains one or the another.

There are rsyslog package which is common to Debian, Ubuntu and RHEL but not SLES and syslog-ng which is common to all of them.

Nicolas PERRON wrote:

I'm not sure to understand what is demanded.

Nothing is demanded, you have reported a bug which isn't a bug, so I'm trying to explain to you why things are the way they are :)

rsyslog is different from syslog-ng and there is no virtual package which contains one or the another.

This is not true, you obviously haven't checked. In case you're not aware, virtual packages are implemented by debian/control having a "Provides: " line, like here: http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/rsyslog.git;a=blob;f=debian/control;h=70182d5f9e9062e3e8fa40094ceddb37a1bc89ba;hb=refs/heads/master#l25. All syslog packages and Debian (and therefore surely on Ubuntu) probably provide this virtual package. Please check.

As rudder-inventory-ldap only needs "a" syslog daemon, it is sufficient for this package to depend on system-log-daemon. You may have to adapt the package to install syslog configuration correctly for rsyslog and/or syslog-ng, though.

There are rsyslog package which is common to Debian, Ubuntu and RHEL but not SLES and syslog-ng which is common to all of them.

Similarly to deb packages, RPM packages can "provide" virtual packages. Please check what is available in the spec files of rsyslog/syslog-ng/syslog on SLES and RHEL!

Nicolas PERRON wrote:

As rudder-inventory-ldap only needs "a" syslog daemon, it is sufficient for this package to depend on system-log-daemon. You may have to adapt the package to install syslog configuration correctly for rsyslog and/or syslog-ng, though.

Similarly to deb packages, RPM packages can "provide" virtual packages. Please check what is available in the spec files of rsyslog/syslog-ng/syslog on SLES and RHEL!

Ok, i see that "rsyslog" Provides "syslog" (https://github.com/Normation/rudder-packages/blob/branches/rudder/2.3/rsyslog-suse/SPECS/rsyslog.spec#L57). syslog seems to be a meta-package (http://rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/opensuse/factory/x86_64/syslogd-1.4.1-758.1.x86_64.html which install sylogd).

So this is correct to use "rsyslog" but shouldn't we use "syslog" which is more generic for all packages which requires "a" syslog daemon ?

That sounds good, for RPMs. Please check (and provide links) that the default rsyslog/syslog-ng/syslogd packages for RHEL/CentOS 5, 6 and SLES 10, 11 all "provide" syslog too. Our rsyslog-suse packages is just one case to check.

Do you agree for the "system-log-daemon" for debian packages? What about providing the correct configuration for each one? I think this is quite a complicated task, and the benefits seem few since all our target OSes use rsyslog by default... so let's keep this at low priority for now. If anyone wants to jump in, patches welcome :)

Besides, on rudder-reports, Debian dependences doesn't requires "rsyslog" at all (https://github.com/Normation/rudder-packages/blob/branches/rudder/2.3/rudder-reports/debian/control#L11), we should repair this at least.

Yes, but this is for lenny compatibility. The rsyslog version included in lenny is too old for our needs (see http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=rsyslog) so we don't depend on it, but have a system technique to install it from backports on lenny (see https://github.com/Normation/rudder-techniques/blob/master/techniques/system/distributePolicy/1.0/rsyslogConf.st#L62). However, these promises don't specify a version either, which is probably bad.

1. Give up lenny support for the server. This seems acceptable to me for 2.4 onwards, since lenny is no longer maintained.
2. Leave the dependencies as is, but add the version requirement to the system technique.

I think 1 will be fine, if you agree please create a new ticket about dropping lenny support and implement (including doc updates, removing Jenkins tasks and this issue).

This is by no means urgent, and not required in upcoming versions.

The ldap package has been merged into the webapp in 5.1, closing.