To view syslog messages, a syslog server must be installed on a workstation in the network. There are several freeware and shareware versions of syslog, as well as enterprise versions for purchase. In Figure 1, an evaluation version of the Kiwi Syslog Daemon is displayed on a Windows 7 machine.
The syslog server provides a relatively user-friendly interface for viewing syslog output. The server parses the output and places the messages into pre-defined columns for easy interpretation. If timestamps are configured on the networking device sourcing the syslog messages, then the date and time of each message displays in the syslog server output, as shown in Figure 2.
Network administrators can easily navigate the large amount of data compiled on a syslog server. One advantage of viewing syslog messages on a syslog server is the ability to perform granular searches through the data. Also, a network administrator can quickly delete unimportant syslog messages from the database.