syslogd not reading messages from a remote machine

[Jon Hamilton]

Jeffrey Goldberg <jeffrey at goldmark.org>, said on Sat Jan 12, 2008 [03:50:45 PM]:
} On Jan 11, 2008, at 9:51 AM, Andy Greenwood wrote:
} 
} >I have recently set up a Fortigate-60 to run as a firewall/vpn on my  
} >home network. I have a FreeBSD 7.0-prerelease machine sitting behind  
} >it in the DMZ which is running ssh/web/etc. I'm trying to get the FG  
} >to log to the BSD box's syslog. I have set up the necessary stuff on  
} >the FG, and can send test logs from there to the bsd box. Running  
} >tcpdump on the bsd [...]
} 
} >So I know that the packets are getting to the machine. I've set up  
} >syslogd to accept packets from 10.10.10.1/32 in rc.conf, and  
} >confirmed that the FG's IP should be accepted [...]
} 
} 
} >I've restarted syslogd after every change I've made, but no dice.  
} >Can anyone shed some light on why these messages aren't logging and  
} >what I need to do to fix it?

I didn't see the original thread, but I recently went through this myself.
It turns out that syslogd assumes/requires by default that the originating
packets come *from* port 514 as well as arriving *on* port 514.  In my case,
the remote device was sending from a high numbered port.  

To disable that behavior, just put -a 10.10.10.1/32:* in your syslogd_flags
and you should be good to go (if your problem was the same as mine :)

-- 

   Jon Hamilton 
   hamilton at pobox.com