Kea client logs

SteveITS

@iTestAndroid what version of pfSense do you have? If CE it’s definitely still in “feature preview” and if 24.11 I think it still might be although they’ve added features.

I would have worded the warning differently but they didn’t force anyone to switch. You could just switch back.

I don’t recall the settings offhand but as I recall I was seeing client requests logged when I experimented with Kea a while back.

iTestAndroid

@SteveITS I'm using latest version "24.11-RELEASE".

I can't find absolutely no settings for logging client requests.

If I switch back to ISC DHCP, would anything break?

WN1X

@iTestAndroid You can safely switch between Kea and ISC.

Gertjan

@iTestAndroid said in Kea client logs:

I can't find absolutely no settings for logging client requests.

Have a look at this file /etc/inc/service.inc
Search for 'severity'.

You'll find something like

			'severity' => config_get_path('kea/loglevel', 'WARN')

Be ware : there is also a

			'severity' => config_get_path('kea6/loglevel', 'WARN')

which is the IPv6 equivalent.

Change WARN for INFO.
Save.
Restart the kea(s).

iTestAndroid

@Gertjan Thanks for the suggestion. I definitely get more logs but still no client logs

ameinild

I have the same issue, just updated to pfSense CE 2.8.0. Previously, on 2.7.2, I got Kea DCHP client logs, now after upgrade I get no logging from the kea-dhcp4 service for client DCHP logs, only from the dhclient for the WAN interface.

However, when trying the above method to change "WARN" to "INFO", I now get client info again. However, I think this should be configurable from the GUI, not hidden away in a script file.

stephenw10

Yup at some point that will be added.

Gertjan

@ameinild said in Kea client logs:

I get no logging from the kea-dhcp4 service for client DCHP logs, only from the dhclient for the WAN interface.

Well ... this is FreeBSD/( and Linux) classic log behavior : no news is good news.

pfpv

I found this thread while searching on how to regain DHCP logs. As others I used them for client troubleshooting and setting static mappings for new devices. I was very surprised when I couldn't find them after switching to KEA.

The solution or rather a workaround by @Gertjan worked. Thank you, @Gertjan. However, I found the new KEA logs are too verbose and are missing some information such as hostnames. I miss ISC concise logs where I looked at a sting and immediately understood what happened. With KEA logs I need to "decipher" each entry in order to understand what happened. And I believe it took fewer lines for the ISC logs to log one assignment. It takes 6 lines for KEA.

I understand this depends on the backend but I wonder if it would be possible to adjust the logging so it'd be more concise?

stephenw10

Yes, it's a planned feature. Only limited by available developer hours.