[bug-inetutils] syslogd uses inet socket excessively

[Mats Erik Andersson]

Dear all,

there is a major problem with the UDP socket used by IU-syslogd.
The only way to switch off the listening socket is to use "--no-forward",
which in turn prevents any forwarding of messages. This phenomenon has
been observed by Guillem Jover in the Debian package "inetutils-syslogs",
which is in use for GNU/kFreeBSD.

There are two actions relevant here:

  1. Only add the "finet" file descriptor to the polling array
     if "AcceptRemote" is in fact set. If "!NoForward" the file
     descriptor is only used for outgoing messages.

  2. Go even further: Abolish the single live UDP socket used
     for forwarding messages. Instead set up a new UDP socket
     every time a message needs to be sent.

I have just tested the first action, which works fine, but of course
the UDP port 514/syslog is alive eventhough an observer cannot judge
that it accepts no input whatsover.

Concerning the second action I would like to hear oppinions as to
performance losses caused by repeated creation of the UDP socket.
Are there other syslog servers that depend on incoming messages
having their origin at port 514/syslog? This is the present
behaviour of IU-syslogd when forwarding messages.

Best regards,
  Mats