Chapter 3. Running Lire

Table of Contents

Lire's configuration system
Getting Started
Using A Responder
Generating A Report From A Log File
Selecting Output Format
Including Charts in the Report
Merging Reports
Manual Merging
Automating Merging using cron: some ideas
Gotchas
Sending Anonymized Log Files To A Responder
Processing The Responder's Results
Running Lire In A Server Cluster
Using Mail
Using Syslog

This chapter describes the various ways that you can use Lire™ to process log files to generate reports. The next chapter (Chapter 4, Automating Lire) explains how you can set up your system to process your log files automatically at regular interval.

Lire™'s configuration system

Lire™ has a configuration system that allows the configuration to be spread over several files. These files are pulled from different locations, each with a different purpose.

prefix/share/lire/defaults/

This configuration directory contains configuration files of Lire™ and any various third-party components you may have installed. You should not edit these files, modifications will be overwritten during an upgrade of Lire™ or those third-party components.

sysconfdir/lire/config/

This is the system-wide configuration directory where a system administrator may want to set defaults for all users on the system.

~/.lire/config/

This is the per-user configuration directory where you can make your own adjustments and set personal preferences and defaults.

Each of these directories is scanned recursively for configuration files so you can organize them as you like. Be aware however that files in directory are not read in a specific order.

Getting Started

To start configuring Lire™, simply fire up lr_config from a terminal. In the first menu allows you can create a new file. Initially all values will be unset so that only defaults are used. If you want to override a default all you need to do is set the value.

If a value is invalid for a given variable it will be marked with a little asterisk (

*

). Such variables will be ignored when Lire™ runs; instead the defaults will be used.

Don't forget to save the file when you are done editing; this can be done by returning to the main menu and selecting the

Save

option.