Re: logging

[Howard Chu <hyc@symas.com>]

Craig wrote:
> That comment was an inference from several web pages that I read. After
> Quanah's reply, I reread the man page for slapd and it's right there at
> the top.

> Also, his comment about auditlog and accesslog overlays were cool. I'll
> look at those.

> Thanx everyone for the help. (My apologies that most of it was RTFM.)

Same old story. You get perfectly good (and usually accurate) docs bundled 
with the source code. Why people start by searching the web, which is only 
going to return inaccurate/outdated cruft, written by people who aren't 
intimately familiar with the subject matter, just doesn't make any sense, and 
it really discourages/frustrates/pisses off those of us writing the docs (and 
the code).

I get a lot of complaints (mostly private, some public) for essentially 
telling people RTFM. Fact is, when I say it, it is the most appropriate 
statement. It's ok to ask a question, but to protest and reject the answers 
you get when they are complete, true, and accurate, is the height of 
unmitigated arrogance.

(Craig, this is not directed at you. Just that your email triggered this line 
of thought that's always percolating here anyway.)

Ignorance isn't a particular crime of course, nobody can know everything. But 
for the most part, LDAP is for sysadmins, and sysadmins have to have problem 
solving skills to be able to perform their jobs. It's not about knowing 
everything, it's about knowing how to find out what you need to know. That 
means knowing efficient processes for finding answers - knowing where to look, 
how to look, or how and what to ask.

When you're looking for a software feature, the manpages and Admin Guide 
should be your first resort. Pretty much every feature is documented. Some 
features exist that are undocumented; most of them are intentionally so, so 
don't give them a second thought. A web search should be your last resort.

When you're looking for info on a software failure, it's unlikely to be in any 
documentation. (Obviously, if we knew about the failure, we would fix it, not 
write a manpage about it. We don't call "bugs" "features", we fix them.) Here 
a web search probably should be your first or second stop. (Searching the 
mailing list archives would be the first stop, but most times Google is kind 
enough to do that for you.)

When a feature in the documentation isn't clear enough to you, it's fine to 
ask on the mailing list, but even better is to submit an ITS pointing out 
exactly what isn't clear. Sometimes we see problems on the list that we feel 
strongly enough about to fix without waiting, but ultimately someone needs to 
submit a bug report so that the problem and its resolution can be tracked.

Life is short, time is limited for every one of us. Make the most of the time 
available to you, don't waste it.
--
  -- Howard Chu
  Chief Architect, Symas Corp.  http://www.symas.com
  Director, Highland Sun        http://highlandsun.com/hyc/
  Chief Architect, OpenLDAP     http://www.openldap.org/project/