Currently the default configuration for syslogd is to keep messages in a memory buffer. These can later be retrieved via the 'logread' program. Since /var/log is set up as a ramdisk (also by default), it's silly not to just let the messages go there as well. If one is concerned about memory usage either leave it as "buffer" or enable log rotation. It would be good if this was more easily configurable. As is, one has to override this config file using .bbappend.
I'd say this was important enough to schedule soon, it's more than a bit frustrating and not - so far as I can see - documented.
My initial thought is to add a variable, perhaps a DISTRO_FEATURE (logging?), which is enabled by default in the Poky distribution to enable this. I propose we have logging to disk enabled by default, at least in Poky through some mechanism in meta-yocto. Further I'll document the switch in an appropriate place. We've oft talked about a cookbook for Poky but I'm not sure on the status of that.
Design Sign-off, does this include log-rotation? Do we need to add a log rotator recipe?
I'm resolving this as fixed, I've had several patches merged to master which switch to logging to a file by default and ensure all of the options available at launch of syslogd are configurable by syslog-startup.conf busybox: enable dropping of duplicates in syslog, off by default http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/commit/?id=3ba7426bbf6be7a708c22d573513a4fd6a3c90d0 busybox: change syslog default to log to a file http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/commit/?id=35d1c6821d0ad6557203336a4440cfd8e1480c7d busybox: enable log level configuration in syslog-startup.conf and script http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/commit/?id=42f0d50fa31b0045631b93962af3446d5f5e9702 busybox: remove incorrect comments from syslog-startup.conf http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/commit/?id=030bdde04ae8790b96021cbb7d12bc1049df096c busybox: drop MARKINT option from init script and syslog-startup.conf http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/commit/?id=cbc784f4ebf26e5440104dacb45ccced9ef3d594
I tested the feature against master with commit cb89d43473a91ff4cb2447d642fcd9308d7366e3, it could work