= Proposed System Wide Change: Rsyslog log format change proposal = https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/RsyslogLogFormat

Change owner(s): * Radovan Sroka <rsroka AT redhat DOT com> * Roman Pavelka <rpavelka AT redhat DOT com>

Currently Fedora uses RSYSLOG_TraditionalFileFormat as a default format for timestamps in its logs. There is missing year and timezone. This proposal aims to change this by adopting ISO 8601 and RFC 3339 compliant timestamp format known as RSYSLOG_FileFormat instead of current RSYSLOG_TraditionalFileFormat.

== Detailed Description == Currently Fedora, RHEL and CentOS use RSYSLOG_TraditionalFileFormat for log’s timestamp, so timestamps in files like /var/log/messages, /var/log/cron and /var/log/secure looks like e.g.:

May 29 13:37:50 localhost systemd: Starting Fingerprint Authentication Daemon...

This format has few disadvantages * Does not include year which sometimes may be needed, mostly when doing long term analysis or some investigation. * Does not include timezone which may be important piece when working with system scattered around the globe. * It is not standard format. Standards are ISO 8601 and more strict RFC 3339

We would propose to change this to defaults to standard format with timezone included. We are suggesting new RSYSLOG_FileFormat that looks like e.g.:

2017-05-29T13:40:50.976409+02:00 localhost systemd: Stopping System Logging Service...

== Scope == * Proposal owners: - commit necessary changes - create rsyslog build

* Other developers: none

* Release engineering: Releng#6818 https://pagure.io/releng/issue/6818

* List of deliverables: Not affected

* Policies and guidelines: Not affected

* Trademark approval: Not needed for this Change