FreeBSD Log Files

These are defined by system’s syslogd daemon in its syslog.conf configuration file.

• messages: acting as a catch-all file (Facility: * all)
• auth.log: sshd, sudo, proftpd (Facility: auth and authpriv)
  Called authlog and secure in OpenBSD, respectively.
• maillog: postfix, sqlgrey (Facility: mail)
• cron: cron (facility cron)
  Called log and put into /var/cron in OpenBSD.
• debug.log: kernel, dovecot, rex (with -d option) (Facility: debug)
• daemon.log: snmp_exporter, pdns, pdns_recursor(Facility: daemon)
  Calleddaemon in OpenBSD.
  Logging to this file was added with FreeBSD 13.0.
• xferlog: ftpd, proftpd (Facility: ftp)

There are also FreeBSD log files not managed by the syslogd daemon and written into by programs.

• userlog: pw (for groupadd, groupdel, groupmod,useradd, userdel usermod subcommands), adduser, rmuser
adduser and rmuser are pw front-end shell scripts
• utx.log (binary): last
see also the /var/run/utx.active database used by w and who commands

The directory these files are put into is /var/loglocated within the system’s/var partition.

As seen already OpenBSD’s syslogd and it’s configuration differ slightly.