Upgrade syslog-ng to AxoSyslog

If you’re already using syslog-ng, you can upgrade your existing syslog-ng deployments to AxoSyslog in a matter of minutes, by simply installing AxoSyslog on the host.

We assume that you’ve installed syslog-ng from the repositories of your distribution. To upgrade to AxoSyslog, complete the following steps.

  1. Check that the syslog-ng service is running:

    sudo systemctl syslog-ng status

    The output will look something like:

    syslog-ng.service - System Logger Daemon
 Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/syslog-ng.service; enabled; preset>
 Active: active (running) since Thu 2025-02-27 17:04:28 CET; 11s ago
   Docs: man:syslog-ng(8)
Main PID: 254 (syslog-ng)
  Tasks: 2 (limit: 9594)
 Memory: 19.6M (peak: 20.8M)
    CPU: 215ms
 CGroup: /system.slice/syslog-ng.service
         └─254 "[rosetta]" /usr/sbin/syslog-ng /usr/sbin/syslog-ng -F

  2. Check the version of syslog-ng you have by running:

    syslog-ng --version

    The output will start with something like:

    syslog-ng 4 (4.8.1)
Config version: 4.2
Installer-Version: 4.8.1

  3. Add the AxoSyslog repository for your distribution and install AxoSyslog. For details, see the installation sections:

    The installation replaces the syslog-ng packages with AxoSyslog packages, but provides the same binaries (for example, /usr/sbin/syslog-ng). It will keep using the existing configuration files (/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf), certificates, and so on.

  4. Check that the syslog-ng service is still running:

    sudo systemctl syslog-ng status

    The output should be identical to the earlier result:

    syslog-ng.service - System Logger Daemon
 Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/syslog-ng.service; enabled; preset>
 Active: active (running) since Thu 2025-02-27 17:07:41 CET; 42s ago
   Docs: man:syslog-ng(8)
Main PID: 1936 (syslog-ng)
  Tasks: 2 (limit: 9594)
 Memory: 79.9M (peak: 83.1M)
    CPU: 462ms
 CGroup: /system.slice/syslog-ng.service
         └─1936 "[rosetta]" /usr/sbin/syslog-ng /usr/sbin/syslog-ng -F

  5. Check the version of syslog-ng you have by running:

    syslog-ng --version

    You’ll see that now you’re running AxoSyslog:

    axosyslog 4 (4.10.1)
Config version: 4.2
Installer-Version: 4.10.1

In case you run into any issues, contact us.

Last modified March 3, 2025: Adds upgrading syslog-ng info from the blog (b1f73b1)