Trevor Watkins, University Libraries, Cameron Hughes and Tracey Hughes, presented “A Little Artificial Intelligence Help With Syslog” at the Ohio Linuxfest 2017 in Columbus, Ohio, on Sept. 30.
Summary: The proliferation of mobile computing, PAAS, SAAS, IAAS and virtualization has increased the burden of log file analysis for the system administration and programming function. The spike in the number of log entries has made log analysis by manual human effort untenable and log analysis essential. Effective log file analysis is not an exact science. A useful log analysis process often requires human insight and judgment. So while automated log analysis methods are essential, they must also be knowledge-based to be effective. In this talk, we describe a new Linux utility and an approach that uses autonomous epistemic agents to analyze entries in real time. The epistemic agent uses a priori knowledge and posteriori knowledge extracted from logs. This talk provides those burdened with the task of monitoring and understanding Syslog and its variants with new Syslog configuration techniques and a preview of an AI layer proposal for Syslog. Web link: