Missing /var/log/messages file in CentOS 6.8

Question

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but my Linux box doesn't seem to be logging any info to the /var/log/messages file.

I've also checked and the kernel isn't logging anything either.

My syslog version is: rsyslog-5.8.10-10.el6_6.x86_64 and I've checked in /etc/rsyslog.d which contains nothing. I've never seen it log anything (as indicated by the directory listing below) and I've confirmed the process is running on the server.

My /etc/rsyslog.conf file (Without comments):

#### MODULES ####
$ModLoad imuxsock # provides support for local system logging (e.g. via logger command)
$ModLoad imklog   # provides kernel logging support (previously done by rklogd)

#### GLOBAL DIRECTIVES ####
$ActionFileDefaultTemplate RSYSLOG_TraditionalFileFormat

$IncludeConfig /etc/rsyslog.d/*.conf

#### RULES ####
kern.*                                                  /var/log/kernel

*.info;mail.none;authpriv.none;cron.none;dhclient.none                /var/log/messages

authpriv.*                                              /var/log/secure

mail.*                                                  -/var/log/maillog

cron.*                                                  /var/log/cron

*.emerg                                                 *

uucp,news.crit                                          /var/log/spooler

local7.*                                                /var/log/boot.log

And here's the ps info:

[root@ip-172-31-29-157 log]# ps ax | grep syslog
11821 ?        Sl     0:00 /sbin/rsyslogd -i /var/run/syslogd.pid -c 5
12336 pts/0    S+     0:00 grep syslog

Some sys info:

[root@ip-172-31-29-157 log]# cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.32-642.el6.x86_64 ([email protected]) (gcc version 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-17) (GCC) ) #1 SMP Tue May 10 17:27:01 UTC 2016
[root@ip-172-31-29-157 log]# cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS release 6.8 (Final)

And here's the content of my /var/log/ dir

[root@ip-172-31-29-157 log]# ls
total 4.6M
4.0K drwxr-xr-x.  9 root  root  4.0K Jun  1 14:31 .
4.0K drwxr-xr-x. 19 root  root  4.0K Mar 24  2014 ..
4.0K drwxr-x---.  2 root  root  4.0K May 11 02:17 audit
4.0K -rw-r--r--.  2 root  root  1.5K Jun  1 00:11 boot.log
   0 -rw-------.  1 root  utmp     0 Jun  1 03:44 btmp
   0 -rw-------.  1 root  utmp     0 May 26 21:12 btmp-20160601
4.0K drwxr-xr-x.  2 root  root  4.0K Jun  1 03:44 ConsoleKit
   0 -rw-------.  1 root  root     0 Jun  1 14:31 cron
1.8M -rw-------.  1 root  root  1.8M Jun  1 14:01 cron-20160601
 28K -rw-r--r--.  1 root  root   25K Jun  1 00:11 dmesg
 24K -rw-r--r--.  1 root  root   23K May 23 01:32 dmesg.old
   0 -rw-r--r--.  1 root  root     0 May 27 03:44 dracut.log
2.4M -rw-r--r--.  1 root  root  2.4M May 27 03:44 dracut.log-20160527
4.0K drwxr-x---.  2 exim  exim  4.0K Jun  1 14:31 exim
4.0K drwx------.  2 root  root  4.0K Jun  1 14:31 httpd
   0 -rw-r--r--.  1 root  root     0 Jun  1 14:31 kernel
4.0K -rw-r--r--.  1 root  root   250 Jun  1 14:25 kernel-20160601
4.0K -rw-r--r--.  1 root  root   64K Jun  1 14:18 lastlog
   0 -rw-------.  1 root  root     0 Jun  1 14:31 maillog
   0 -rw-------.  1 root  root     0 May 31 23:29 maillog-20160601
   0 -rw-r--r--.  1 root  root     0 Jun  1 14:31 messages
   0 -rw-r--r--.  1 root  root     0 Jun  1 14:23 messages-20160601
4.0K drwx------.  2 munge munge 4.0K Feb 20  2014 munge
4.0K drwxr-xr-x.  2 root  root  4.0K Jun  1 03:44 newrelic
4.0K drwxr-xr-x.  2 ntp   ntp   4.0K May 11 16:04 ntpstats
   0 -rw-------.  1 root  root     0 Jun  1 14:31 secure
 68K -rw-------.  1 root  root   61K Jun  1 14:18 secure-20160601
   0 -rw-------.  1 root  root     0 Jun  1 14:31 spooler
   0 -rw-------.  1 root  root     0 May 31 23:29 spooler-20160601
   0 -rw-------.  1 root  root     0 May 26 21:11 tallylog
   0 -rw-rw-r--.  1 root  utmp     0 Jun  1 14:31 wtmp
164K -rw-rw-r--.  1 root  utmp  160K Jun  1 14:18 wtmp-20160601
   0 -rw-------.  1 root  root     0 Jun  1 14:31 yum.log
 24K -rw-------.  1 root  root   18K May 26 21:13 yum.log-20160601

Answer 1

Unless you have any specific requirement not to, I'd remove the old version & its config and install the current (version 8) with a fresh config file and try with a fresh install.

Presuming you use yum as your package manager & you installed Rsyslog from it, update your repo file at /etc/yum.repos.d/rsyslog.repo to add;

[rsyslog_v8]
name=Adiscon CentOS-$releasever - local packages for $basearch
baseurl=http://rpms.adiscon.com/v8-stable/epel-$releasever/$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://rpms.adiscon.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-Adiscon
protect=1

If you have any old repo's listed in there set enabled=0 to disable them. If you don't have a .repo file then you can make one and add that section above.

Then remove the current old version of rsyslog & its config directly;

rpm -e rsyslog --no-deps
rm /etc/rsyslog.conf

Then install the fresh version (8) from yum;

yum install rsyslog

Check the config is correct (defaults may be fine) and check its started & running /etc/init.d/rsyslog status