I want to log my app so that it writes its log into its own log file. I create the log file and save it under /etc/rsyslog.dbut my app doesn't create/write to the designated file. However, once I reload rsyslog, there are log entries the next time my app runs.

I package my app into an RPM so I can write post-install scripts if necessary. Is this the proper way to handle this via post-install scripts?

/etc/rsyslog.d/serf.conf

if $programname == 'serf' then /var/log/serf.log
& ~

Sending pkill -HUP rsyslog works but I wasn't sure if that would cause any issues to other programs while they're in the middle of logging.

Solution 1:

Sending SIGHUP can't reload the rsyslog configure files, but only reopens the log files for rotating. Restart should reload the config files.

see https://lists.gt.net/rsyslog/users/16151