--- layout: docs page_title: Syslog - Audit Devices sidebar_title: Syslog description: The "syslog" audit device writes audit logs to syslog. --- # Syslog Audit Device The `syslog` audit device writes audit logs to syslog. It currently does not support a configurable syslog destination, and always sends to the local agent. This device is only supported on Unix systems, and should not be enabled if any standby Vault instances do not support it. ~> **Warning**: Audit messages generated for some operations can be quite large, and can be larger than a [maximum-size single UDP packet](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5426#section-3.1). If possible with your syslog daemon, configure a TCP listener. Otherwise, consider using a `file` backend and having syslog configured to read entries from the file; or, enable both `file` and `syslog` so that a failure for a particular message to log directly to `syslog` will not result in Vault being blocked. ## Examples Audit `syslog` device can be enabled by the following command: ```shell-session $ vault audit enable syslog ``` Supply configuration parameters via K=V pairs: ```shell-session $ vault audit enable syslog tag="vault" facility="AUTH" ``` ## Configuration - `facility` `(string: "AUTH")` - The syslog facility to use. - `tag` `(string: "vault")` - The syslog tag to use. - `log_raw` `(bool: false)` - If enabled, logs the security sensitive information without hashing, in the raw format. - `hmac_accessor` `(bool: true)` - If enabled, enables the hashing of token accessor. - `mode` `(string: "0600")` - A string containing an octal number representing the bit pattern for the file mode, similar to `chmod`. - `format` `(string: "json")` - Allows selecting the output format. Valid values are `"json"` and `"jsonx"`, which formats the normal log entries as XML. - `prefix` `(string: "")` - A customizable string prefix to write before the actual log line.