Understanding the benefits of using Syslog
When events occur on a network, networking devices, such as routers, switches, and firewalls, generate a log message to notify the administrator with details about the event. These log messages can contain details about critical or non-critical events. Network professionals use a wide range of tools and options for managing these log messages, such as storing, displaying, interpreting, and normalizing. This helps network professionals to focus on the more critical log messages and determine the timeline of an event that has occurred.
Syslog is both a protocol and standard for accessing, creating, and managing log messages on a computer and network device. Syslog defines the method of how system messages, such as logs, are generated, formatted, and accessed.
Important note
The Syslog log uses UDP port 514 to send event messages across a network to a centralized Syslog server for management.
