piperlog.man

.TH PIPERLOG 1 "9 July 2006" Tardis "Piperlog manual"
.SH NAME
piperlog \- summarise log file messages
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B piperlog
.RB [ \-\-buffer\-size
.IR size ]
.RB [ \-\-ignore\-file
.IR file ]
.RB [ \-\-summary\-file
.IR file ]
.RB [[ \-\- ]
.IR "file ..." ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
Provide a summary of the supplied log messages.  Lines matching patterns in
the
.I ignore
file will be discarded, and those matching patterns in the
.I summary
file will be combined with other recent matches unless they differ in captured
parts (those in parenthesis in the patterns).
.PP
If no files are given on the command line to summarise, then the standard input
is used.  The normal way to invoke the program is to use a pipe from
.BR logmerge (1)
to summarise a number of log files simultaneously.
.PP
The patterns are PCRE regular expressions, see the
.BR pcrepattern (3)
manual page for details.
.SH OPTIONS
.IP "\-\-buffer\-size size"
The size of the output buffer where we look for duplicates.
.IP "\-\-ignore\-file file"
Ignore lines matching the patterns in the given file.  By default a file
called
.I /etc/piperlog/ignore
is used.
.IP "\-\-summary\-file file"
Summarise lines matching the patterns in the given file.  By default a file
called
.I /etc/piperlog/summarise
is used.
.SH EXAMPLES
A sample summarise file is included, along with a couple of scripts to make
an ignore file from a set of
.BR logcheck (8)
pattern files.  The
.I mkignore
script takes the pattern files and uses
.I convert
to change them into
.BR piperlog (1)
format, while adding the patterns in the
.I extra
file and dropping those in the
.I discard
file.  Sample
.I extra
and
.I discard
files are provided.
.PP
The
.BR logmerge (1)
manual page includes instructions on setting up a
.BR cron (8)
job to produce regular log summaries.
.SH FILES
.IR /etc/piperlog/summarise ,
.IR /etc/piperlog/ignore .
.SH AUTHORS
Brian Campbell (bacam@tardis.ed.ac.uk).
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR logmerge (1),
.BR pcrepattern (3)