System logs on a Plesk server are not populating when the rsyslog package is not installed

Symptoms

• System logs such as /var/log/maillog, /var/log/secure or /var/log/messages are empty and not populating.

• 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 following error message appears in the service status:

  # service fail2ban status
  ...
  ERROR    Failed during configuration: Have not found any log file for ssh jai

Cause

The system package rsyslog which is responsible for logging is not installed on the server:

• on CentOS/RHEL-based distributions

  # rpm -qa | grep rsyslog
  #

• on Debian/Ubuntu-based distributions

  # dpkg -l | grep rsyslog
  #

Note: The rsyslog package does not come by default on AlmaLinux installations.

Resolution

1. Connect to the Plesk server via SSH.

2. Install the rsyslog package:

   • on CentOS/RHEL-based distributions

     # yum install rsyslog

     or the command below, if DNF package manager is used:

     # dnf install rsyslog

   • on Debian/Ubuntu-based distributions

     # apt install rsyslog

3. Start the rsyslog service:

   # systemctl start rsyslog