Ignorance Is Bliss

One of the many jobs a Synology NAS can do is to serve as a syslog server. Most network gear can support sending it’s logs to a syslog server and in doing so, you can have one place to go to review logs on all those devices.

On the other hand, what you don’t know can’t hurt you, right? Right?!

Seriously, the issues I have discovered in just over 12 hours of using Log Center are arguably not actually serious, but they are bothersome just because now I know.

I configured Log Center to collect logs from my pfSense router/firewall, two Cisco switches and, just for the entertainment value, one of my IP cameras.

Activity from the switches is very light. I verified that it would log a port being disconnected and reconnected and other than an hourly DHCP refresh from each switch, they have been pretty quiet.

The camera is also pretty quiet. It mostly shows login and logout activity from both my laptop and the NAS while playing with some settings and silence since then.

The router, on the other hand, is quite chatty. It also has more granular control over what gets sent to syslog.

Note that I have unchecked Firewall Events. Before doing that, the log was just stupid busy. The firewall blocks a LOT of traffic. I do need to analyze that traffic at some point. Some of the blocked traffic is internal.

The thing that bothers me but probably shouldn’t is the number of DHCP requests from stuff that is obviously online and operating.

Does my camera out by the gate really need to refresh it’s IP every 4 seconds ALL DAY? The camera alone accounts for almost 71% (32,552 out of 46,198) of the log events between midnight and a bit after 11AM when I pulled the log to look at it. Why does a camera that is online and operating have to do that?

I will figure it out….

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