syslog is sometimes empty

[Paul Larson]

I've seen a few cases where the syslog is empty after running a job. For instance:
http://10.98.0.1:8080/view/Raring/view/Smoke%20Testing/job/raring-desktop-amd64-smoke-default/11/artifact/
In this case, "log" was also empty as well, which is likely a contributing factor.

Max also pointed me at http://10.98.0.1:8080/view/Raring/view/Smoke%20Testing/job/raring-desktop-amd64-smoke-default/3/artifact/ though, which has the data in "log" but not in syslog

[Paul Abrahams (abrahams)]

I don't know if this is the same problem, but my /var/log/syslog is empty (in Kubuntu 12.10).

[Max Brustkern (nuclearbob)]

This is related to the automated libvirt installations intending to write a syslog file via a serial console, so it's likely unrelated.

[Para Siva (psivaa)]

In version r831 of utah, the syslog is directed to the console output and meets the following exception,
2013-03-13 09:52:48,474 rsyslog WARNING: file truncation detected
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/utah/run.py", line 213, in run_tests
    machine.installclient()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/utah/provisioning/provisioning.py", line 397, in installclient
    self.uploadfiles([deb], tmppath)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/utah/provisioning/ssh.py", line 127, in uploadfiles
    self.activecheck()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/utah/provisioning/ssh.py", line 286, in activecheck
    self._start()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/utah/provisioning/vm/vm.py", line 553, in _start
    self.rsyslog.wait_for_booted(config.boot_steps)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/utah/provisioning/rsyslog.py", line 94, in wait_for_booted
    self._wait_for_steps(steps, logfile, callbacks)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/utah/provisioning/rsyslog.py", line 109, in _wait_for_steps
    match = self._wait_for(f, pattern, message, timeout)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/utah/provisioning/rsyslog.py", line 170, in _wait_for
    raise UTAHException('Timeout occurred for {}'.format(message))
UTAHException: Timeout occurred for system booted

[Javier Collado (javier.collado)]

A merge request is ongoing to add more information in the logs to troubleshoot
timeout errors as the one described in #3. For more information, please have a
look at: bug1162862