Sometimes System logs on a Plesk server will not Populate as a result of rsyslog package not installed on the system.
Here at Ibmi Media, we shall look into ways to resolve this plesk error.
In this situation, system logs such as /var/log/maillog, /var/log/secure or /var/log/messages are empty and not populating.
Also, When activating Fail2Ban at Tools & Settings > IP Address Banning (Fail2Ban) > Settings, the operation is successful, but the option Enable intrusion detection is still disabled.
The error takes the below form in the service status:
# service fail2ban status
...
ERROR Failed during configuration: Have not found any log file for ssh jail
The main cause of this issue is a result of the system package rsyslog which is responsible for logging is not installed on the server.
So on CentOS/RHEL-based distributions, you can run the below command to check it and you will see that it yields no output:
#rpm -qa | grep rsyslog
#
Same on Debian/Ubuntu-based distributions, you can run the below command to see:
# dpkg -l | grep rsyslog
#
Note: The rsyslog package does not come by default on AlmaLinux installations.
1. Firstly, connect to the Plesk server via SSH.
2. Then, install the rsyslog package:
On CentOS/RHEL-based distributions, run the below command:
$ yum install rsyslog
Or the command below, if DNF package manager is used:
$ dnf install rsyslog
On Debian/Ubuntu-base distributions, run the command:
$ apt install rsyslog
3. Finally, start the rsyslog service with the below command:
$ systemctl start rsyslog
This article covers the best method to resolve System logs not populating on a Plesk Server.