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syslog-ng 8.0-3 broke default config

After upgrading from syslog-ng 6.0-9 to 8.0-3 I noticed syslog-ng failed to start .

journal snippet

sep 26 17:53:20 silverbolt systemd[1]: Created slice Slice /system/syslog-ng.
sep 26 17:53:22 silverbolt syslog-ng[784]: [2024-09-26T17:53:22.787751] WARNING: Your configuration file uses an obsoleted keyword, please update your configuration; keyword='stats_freq', change='Use the stats() block. E.g. stats(freq(1));', location='/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf:272:2'
sep 26 17:53:22 silverbolt syslog-ng[784]: [2024-09-26T17:53:22.787751] Error resolving reference; content='source', name='src', location='/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf:168:2'
sep 26 17:53:22 silverbolt systemd[1]: syslog-ng@default.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=2/INVALIDARGUMENT
sep 26 17:53:22 silverbolt systemd[1]: syslog-ng@default.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

I compared /etc/syslog-ng/syslog.conf with the version from 6.0.-9 and noticed they were very different . Overwriting /etc/syslog-ng/syslog.conf with the version from 6.0-9 restored functionality .

sep 28 12:14:29 silverbolt systemd[1]: Created slice Slice /system/syslog-ng.
sep 28 12:14:31 silverbolt syslog-ng[776]: [2024-09-28T12:14:31.673133] WARNING: Your configuration file uses an obsoleted keyword, please update your configuration; keyword='stats_freq', change='Use the stats() block. E.g. stats(freq(1));', location='/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf:8:3'
sep 28 12:14:31 silverbolt syslog-ng[776]: [2024-09-28T12:14:31.673133] systemd-journal: Current position does not match the previously restored cursor position, seeking to head; cursor='s=6296fc830daa44c1a1152d039130f7e3;i=621998;b=b19f1e1eb98d4013a049a23c22317c43;m=14ca76c4;t=6232b270efa54;x=114336bba860a1bd', rc='0', error='Success (0)'

eb6ca804 appears to be the cause of the issue .

The prepare() function in the PKGBUILD has this line : patch -Np1 -i ../$pkgname-4.6.0-config.patch # add further distribution examples, disable default log file which suggests shipping a non-functional default config file may be intentional.

If the change to a broken configuration was accidental, the default config needs to be corrected.

In case it was intentional users should be informed about this.

A news item on archlinux.org would help a lot, but there also should be given messages on install and updating from pre-8.0 versions that manual action is/may be needed to make the package usable .

Lone_Wolf

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