In a project we ran into a possible problem with syslogd:
On a Intel E8400 based system running openSUSE 11.1 x86_64 we found that we can send about 30 messages per second to the syslogd. It is used in the configuration installed by the distribution. We tested this with a small program with calls to syslog sending messages with less than 100 Bytes each. The machine had nothing else to do.
Changes to the configuration did not increase this number.
Playing with sync, log_fetch_limit etc. did not have an effect. We could achieve to send burst of messages fast but when the size aof the inbut buffer is exceeded we fall back to the standard rate. Removing filters did not help either.
We observed that at this rate one cpu core was 100% busy (xosview) even if the process itself caused only 1% load (top). According to xosview the cpu core is most of the time in cpu wait state.
On a similar machine running openSUSE 10.3 we achived a ten times higher rate.
Anyone out there to give a hint? Thanks