I’d propose adding a new priority to the syslog service in *nix systems: dumbass, which would blare forth rock-stupid mistakes into /var/log/messages in an impossible to overlook manner.

This proposal stems from a far-too-long tail-chasing session during one of the classroom labs today, wherein yours truly entered an IP address of 1921.168.0.X into named.conf.  I’m not terribly fluent in server-side DNS configuration, that function being handled by our network group.  So, when things didn’t work at all after the aforementioned faux pas, I was convinced that my setup was in error for reasons other than gobsmacking stupidity.

Now, if syslog had a dumbass priority, one that would log something like

dumbass: No IP address has an octet > 255

I would have saved a bunch of troubleshooting time, just by grepping /var/log/messages for “dumbass.” On second thought, maybe that’s not such a good idea; I’d probably be grepping so often I’d have to set up a shell alias for the command.

Other than the aforementioned dumbass attack, class went well today.

-k-
[stags]geek[/stags]