5.3-Beta7 diskless boot: it boots but has empty /var (on/dev/md1) !?

[Rob]

Ryan Sommers wrote:
> Rob wrote:
> 
>> However, on the diskless PC, /var is on a memory
>> disk, but that directory is completely empty:
>>
>>   disklessPC# ls -a /var
>>   .       ..      .snap
>>
>>   disklessPC# mount
>>   192.168.123.254:/ on / (nfs, read-only)
>>   devfs on /dev (devfs, local)
>>   /dev/md0 on /etc (ufs, local, soft-updates)
>>   procfs on /proc (procfs, local)
>>   /dev/md1 on /var (ufs, local, soft-updates)
>>   192.168.123.254:/usr on /usr (nfs, read-only)
>>   192.168.123.254:/home on /home (nfs)
>>   /dev/md2 on /tmp (ufs, local, soft-updates)
>>
>> This has serious consequences on the diskless PC.
>> For example, sshd cannot start because /var/empty
>> is not there. There is no information in /var/run,
>> /var/log etc.
>>
>> Is something missing in the /etc/rc.d/initdiskless script,
>> or have I forgotten something?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Rob.
> 
> 
> The /var memory disk needs to be populated with a base structure. This 
> is handled in initdiskless by templates (see 
> /etc/rc.d/initdiskless:285). You can either have them as subdirectories 
> in your /conf/ or as dir.cpio.gz cpio'gzip archives that are then 
> extracted.

Great! Thank you. This works very well.

What I have done is putting only the directories in the var.cpio.gz,
as follows:
     find /var -type d | cpio -o > /conf/base/var.cpio
     gzip /conf/base/var.cpio

to regenerate the directory tree for /var on the diskless PC, assuming
that individual files will be created as the system boots.
The latter is indeed the case with files like
    /var/run/dmesg.boot
    /var/run/sshd.pid
    /var/run/syslog.pid
    /var/run/syslogd.sockets
and so forth.

However, /var/log/ is empty and remains empty !?!? Any idea why that is?
I need to inspect files like /var/log/auth.log, /var/log/messages and
so on. Why are these log files not generated?

syslogd is running:

#  ps awux | grep syslog
root 231 0.0 2.7 1316 760  ?? Ss 6:20PM 0:00.13 /usr/sbin/syslogd -ss
rob  677 0.0 1.1  476 312  p2 R+ 8:09PM 0:00.01 grep syslog

Thanks!
Rob.