What log files should I keep an eye on?

I want to make sure there are no problems with my system, so I want to do some preemptive troubleshooting.
Which log files are the most important ones to look at?
Is there a log for the main boot? For example on that shows how all the DAEMONS and MODULES have started?

check out the syslog-ng package, it should already be installed.  set up is in /etc/syslog-ng.conf, you can tell it what to monitor, etc.
i prefer to keep two konsole tabs open with "tail -f " running on each, following
~/.xsession-errors [shows kde/X errors]
/var/log/all  [which i set up on syslog, to catch all errors/messages into one file]
dmesg is the one that shows you what the kernel does during bootup, and /var/log/Xorg.0.log shows what X does on startup. you can find all your current open log files in /var/log (that's the default system location i believe).  and of course individual programs can also have their debug info going into outer space (ex. open firefox in console, and you'll see plenty of debugging info, mine used to end up in .xsession-errors, but i needed to have firefox's debug/log info separate so i changed the behavior)
there is also a multi-tail command somewhere that lets you follow several files at once on one screen.  i havent used it though.
Last edited by toxygen (2009-10-11 02:54:06)

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