Chapter 4. The Log File
Logs become irreplaceable resources when problems arise in almost anything. Meeting notes, registration sheets, visitor comment cards, and Syslog entries are all signs of logs that can be used to track down problem trends and identify troublesome changes that may have occurred.
OpenVPN has a multitude of logging capabilities that allow the system administrators to track active connections, session setup and negotiation, authentication, and more. In addition, the level of verbosity can be adjusted by making the logs more useful during changes and reducing disk consumption when the VPN is stable.
This chapter will describe the various logging options in OpenVPN. The ability to mute repetitive log entries, build responsive logging and usage interfaces, and tune the logs for the state of the VPN, such as recent changes, new features, or problematic clients, are all possible with well-tuned configuration options.