zfswatcher does not create directory for logs

[vlambaard]

Hi, I receive the following notification when I do zfswatcher -t

zfswatcher -t

2019-03-12 23:12:26 [NOTIFIER] error opening log file: open /var/log/zfswatcher/zfswatcher.log: no such file or directory

If you create the directory manually and restart it logs to the file.

OS is Debian 9.7

[rouben]

AFAIK most software does not create directories for log files; it's up to the package to do this... do you think it's better to fix this in the package post-install/reconfigure script?

[Nozzie]

I also noticed this. When I do a 'make install', I expect to get a functioning program. But zfswatcher won't start without a valid log location.
Same goes for the systemd zfswatcher.service file, it is provided in the etc dir, but it is not copied. Although that might be more difficult to fix since you have to take different systems into account.

[rouben]

I was hesitant to just assume something like /var/log/zfswatcher as the default path for logs. Is this consistent across all platforms that zfswatcher supports (e.g. Solaris/Illumos, *BSD, etc)?

I suppose if it's hard-coded in the config as a default, there's no harm in this assumption. The onus would be on the end-user to ensure that if they move the log file location, they would need to ensure that the path in the new location exists and is writable by the zfswatcher process.

With regards to systemd unit files, I think the location of those is safer to presume since systemd is unique to Linux and is not supported on *BSD or Solaris/Illumos. So if anyone wants to test the systemd unit files and confirm that they work, we can put them in the make install and the RPM/DEB packages.

[Danoontjes]

I have been using the zfswatcher.service file provided in the etc/ dir of this repo It works just fine.
Maybe change the Documentation line, it still points to http://zfswatcher.damicon.fi/