How to use logger on Linux

Content from a file

The contents of text files can be added by using the -f option. Put the name of the file to be added to the log following the -f option as shown below.

$ cat msg
Backups to off-site facility will run this coming weekend.
System availability will not be affected.
$ logger -f msg
$ tail -2 /var/log/syslog
May 21 18:06:01 butterfly shs: Backups to off-site facility will run this coming weekend.
May 21 18:06:01 butterfly shs: System availability will not be affected.

Using logger in scripts

You can add logger commands to scripts to make it easier to track the completion of important tasks.

$ grep logger /bin/runme
logger "$0 completed at `date`"
$ sudo runme
$ tail -1 /var/log/syslog
May 21 17:57:36 butterfly shs: ./runme completed at Mon May 21 17:57:36 EDT 2018

Limiting the size of logger entries

If you’re concerned about how much data will be added to your log file, especially if you’re dumping content from a file, you can use the –size option to limit it. In this example, the size is artificially small to make a point.

$ logger --size 10 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
$ tail -1 /var/log/syslog
May 21 18:18:02 butterfly shs: 1234567890

This option works differently than you might expect in that, given input that includes blanks, it will constrain the content on a per-line basis rather than an overall length basis.

$ logger --size 5 `date`
$ tail -5 /var/log/syslog
May 22 08:35:51 butterfly shs: May
May 22 08:35:51 butterfly shs: 22
May 22 08:35:51 butterfly shs: 08:35
May 22 08:35:51 butterfly shs: EDT
May 22 08:35:51 butterfly shs: 2018

Don’t be misled by these simple examples. The –size option is generally used to limit large amounts of text. The default maximum is 1KiB (1024 bytes).

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Ignoring blank lines

The -e option allows you to avoid dumping empty lines into your log file. They will simply be ignored. Note, however, that a line that contains blanks will not be considered blank.

$ cat appts
Appts
                                              <=== file includes blank line
8 AM -- get to office
8:30 AM -- meet with boss
11:00 AM -- staff meeting
$ logger -e -f appts
May 22 08:17:31 butterfly shs: Appts          <=== log does not
May 22 08:17:31 butterfly shs: 8 AM -- get to office
May 22 08:17:31 butterfly shs: 8:30 AM -- meet with boss
May 22 08:17:31 butterfly shs: 11:00 AM -- staff meeting
May 22 08:17:33 butterfly kernel: [58833.758599] [UFW BLOCK] IN=enp0s25 OUT= MAC=01:00:5e:00:00:fb:ac:63:be:ca:10:cf:08:00 SRC=192.168.0.9 DST=224.0.0.251 LEN=32 TOS=0x00 PREC=0xC0 TTL=1 ID=0 DF PROTO=2

Other options

The logger tool offers others as well — such as writing to a log on another server using -n or –no-act for testing. Check your man page for more details.