System Log

bgm's trick for enabling system log

1. In the shell, do: echo "*.* /var/log/syslog" > /etc/syslog.conf
2. Add the following tags to /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist after the tag <string>/usr/sbin/syslogd</string>

<string>-bsd_out</string>
<string>1</string>

This will tell the Daemon Launcher to call /usr/sbin/syslogd -bsd_out 1, and we have configured it to write all messages to /var/log/syslog

1. "reboot & enjoy your kernel and other messages" (bgm)

Note

The syslog will grow very big quite quickly if you use WinterBoard's debug setting, but the folder /private/var/log is on the data partition (music, etc).
If you keep your device full of music, be careful you don't fill the partition. Unix systems tend to break when they cant write to the syslog. Keep an eye on it or employ some log rotation.

To disable, enter Terminal.app and run:

rm /var/log/syslog;
mknod /var/log/syslog c 3 2

This will delete (rm) the file and create a /dev/null. (mknod *** c 3 2)

To reenable, enter Terminal.app and run:

rm /var/log/syslog
touch /var/log/syslog

This will delete (rm) the file and and make a blank regular file. (touch)

SBSettings Toggle

An SBSettings toggle for enabling/disabling syslog is available at BigBoss' Cydia repository. The syslog > /var/log/syslog package from saurik's repo is not a dependency and you must manually install it also.

Read syslog from command line

apt-get install socat
socat - UNIX-CONNECT:/var/run/lockdown/syslog.sock

This gives an interactive shell with the syslog daemon (no need to enable file output). The watch command prints new messages as they arrive.

Reference

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