Dynamic DNS log file noise
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The Dynamic DNS code (dyndns.class) writes a lot of essentially "debug" type messages to syslog - you will see a lot of them posted here. They clog (pardon the pun) up my syslog because I need to run the dynamic DNS check at regular intervals (some pfSense are not the front-end device with public IP, so they don't see a public WAN IP changing - they need to check regularly what their public IP is). I imagine there are others who would like less output also.
I am happy to clean up the code. I guess the "debug" type messages should be kept in there as an option. Do I add an option on the main Dynamic DNS page for users to enable verbose logging? Or as an option on each Dynamic DNS definition (so some entries could have full logging and others quieter)? Or where is the best place to put a "verbose logging on/off" switch? Or? -
Couldn't you just rig it so a change in the WAN ip triggers a single DNS check, rather than polling? That way you don't have to worry about the logs getting cluttered.
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Couldn't you just rig it so a change in the WAN ip triggers a single DNS check, rather than polling?
That is the way it works if the nominated interface has a public IP address. But if the nominated interface has a private IP address then a public web site is polled (by default at about 1am, I think) for the corresponding pubic IP address.
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There's a balance between enough logging to know what happened, but not so much that it's unnecessarily spamming the logs. Some of what's there may be better suited to a debug option. Probably an option under System>Advanced, Misc for enabling the debug logging. Just don't silence it entirely or remove so much logging that things pertinent to the majority of use cases aren't there by default.
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I made this change a couple of weeks ago: https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense/commit/87b9167234eed690ad6150624169f289f5075625
Now in 2.1 by default it just logs minimal success messages and actual errors. The other "progress scores" that it was logging only come if you enable the verbose logging option in Services->Dynamic DNS, Edit an entry.