Brain-free syslog** logging for node.js.

Ain written with full compatibility with node.js console module. It implements all console functions and formatting. Also ain supports UTF-8 (tested on Debian Testing/Sid).

Ain can send messages by UDP to 127.0.0.1:514 or to the a unix socket; /dev/log on Linux and /var/run/syslog on Mac OS X

*In the Phoenician alphabet letter "ain" indicates eye.

**All examples tested under Debian Squeeze rsyslog. On other operating systems and logging daemons settings and paths may differ.

You can install ain as usual - by copy "ain" directory in your ~/.node_libraries or via npm

npm install ain2

Usage of ain is very similar to node.js console. Following example demonstrates the replacement of the console:

var console = require('ain2');

console.log('notice: %d', Date.now());
console.info('info');
console.error('error');

After launch in /var/log/user you can see the following:

Dec  5 06:45:26 localhost ex.js[6041]: notice: 1291513526013
Dec  5 06:45:26 localhost ex.js[6041]: info
Dec  5 06:45:26 localhost ex.js[6041]: error

By default ain sets following destinations:

• TAG - __filename
• Facility - user (1)
• HOSTNAME - localhost
• PORT - 514
• Transport - UDP or Unix socket

You can change them by set function. set function is chainable.

var logger = require('ain2')
        .set({tag: 'node-test-app', facility: 'daemon', hostname: 'devhost', port: 3000});
logger.warn('some warning');

... and in /var/log/daemon.log:

Dec  5 07:08:58 devhost node-test-app[10045]: some warning

set function takes one argument, a configuration object which can contain the following keys:

• tag - defaults to __filename
• facility - defaults to user
• hostname - defaults to require('os').hostname()
• port - defaults to 514
• transport - defaults to 'UDP', can also be 'file'

All of these are optional. If you provide a hostname transport is automatically set to UDP

tag and hostname arguments is just RFC 3164 TAG and HOSTNAME of your messages.

facility is little more than just name. Refer to Section 4.1.1 of RFC 3164 it can be:

##  String  Description
-----------------------
 0  kern    kernel messages
 1  user    user-level messages
 2  mail    mail system
 3  daemon  system daemons
 4  auth    security/authorization messages
 5  syslog  messages generated internally by syslog daemon
 6  lpr     line printer subsystem
 7  news    network news subsystem
 8  uucp    UUCP subsystem
16  local0  local use 0
17  local1  local use 1
18  local2  local use 2
19  local3  local use 3
20  local4  local use 4
21  local5  local use 5
22  local6  local use 6
23  local7  local use 7

You can set facility by String or Number:

logger.set({tag: 'node-test-app', facility: 3});
logger.set({tag: 'node-test-app', facility: 'daemon'});

Also you can set TAG, Facility, HOSTNAME, PORT, and transport separately by setTag, setFacility, setHostname, setPort and setTransport functions. All of them are chainable too.

You can get all destinations by these properties:

• tag TAG
• facility Numerical representation of RFC 3164 facility
• hostname HOSTNAME
• port PORT

As noticed before ain implements all console functions. Severity level is referenced to RFC 3164:

#  String   Description
-----------------------
0  emerg    Emergency: system is unusable
1  alert    Alert: action must be taken immediately
2  crit     Critical: critical conditions
3  err      Error: error conditions
4  warn     Warning: warning conditions
5  notice   Notice: normal but significant condition
6  info     Informational: informational messages
7  debug    Debug: debug-level messages

Ain console-like functions behaviour is fully compatible to node.js and logs messages with different severity levels:

• log - notice (5)
• info - info (6)
• warn - warn (4)
• error - err (3)
• dir - notice (5)
• time, timeEnd - notice (5)
• trace - err (3)
• assert - err (3)

To log message with desired severity level you can use send function:

logger.send('message', 'alert');

send function takes two arguments: message and optional severity level. By default, severity level is notice.

After importing ain already has default logger. Everything that was described above - just about it.

If you need log message with different TAG, facility and HOSTNAME without touching default logger, you can get independent instance of logger by get function.

var logger = require('ain').set('node-test-app', 'daemon', 'devhost');
logger.warn('some warning');

var anotherLogger = logger.get(logger.tag, 'local0', logger.hostname);
anotherLogger.log('another messgage'); 

get function takes three arguments - as well as set function and return new logger object. This object is just new instance of "logger" and has all ain functions (including get).