[tor-relays] logging failure in 0.2.3.10-alpha

[Scott Bennett]

     On Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:39:55 -0800 (PST) CyberRax <cyberrax at yahoo.com>
wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>
>> From: Scott Bennett <bennett at cs.niu.edu>
>> =A0 =A0  I delayed moving from 0.2.3.7-alpha to 0.2.3.10-alpha until now =
>[...]
>>=A0=A0=A0=A0 ...no log files were created
>
>2 thoughts:
>a) does the user have access to the logging folder? (_tor rather than root)
>b) if you're building through FreeBSD's ports system then the installed /us=
>r/local/etc/rc.d/tor gives the log filename from commandline which,
>=A0=A0 if I understand correctly, overrides the settings given in torrc (th=
>at change was made in 0.2.3.9 or so)

     *Very* good clue!  Thank you very much!
     Several years ago, I did install a version of tor via the ports tree,
but soon switched to building it myself due to delays in new versions being
incorporated into the ports and a concern over potentially losing key files,
torrc, etc. if I needed to remove it temporarily or during updates.  However,
I left the infrastructure stuff (e.g., the /usr/local/etc/rc.d/tor script
and the /var/db/tor and /var/log/tor directories) in place.  The version
information line in it still says,

# $FreeBSD: ports/security/tor/files/tor.in,v 1.2 2006/08/06 12:26:25 arved Exp $

:-)
     Anyway, I deleted the --log option from the line that starts/stops tor,
and it created both log files this time when I started it.  The original
script specified /var/log/tor as a log file, so I must have long ago changed
it to a directory to hold more than one log file and then forgotten I had
done that.  /var/log is a directory only writeable by root anyway, and
/var/log/tor is a directory only writeable by _tor, so tor would not have
been able to create a file called /var/log/tor.
     Thanks again for the pointer!


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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