[Logcheck-devel] Bug#409444: logcheck: ignore "last line repeated $n times" if prevline matched

[Jonas Koelker]

Package: logcheck
Version: 1.2.53
Severity: wishlist

I (think I) want to see how many times the messages I care about are
repeated.  This means I can't ignore "last line repeated $n times"
messages (obviously).  But since those can also occur after messages
that are ignored, I can't _not_ ignore them either.  So, I lose.

I can see two solutions:  one is to add a new config option; the other
is replacing the current set-of-regular-expressions with sed scripts.

Although the sed script solution is potentially more general, I have a
problem when logchecking units _start_with_ "last line repeated...";
in order to solve this, one could imagine instructing logcheck to move
lines between logchecking units.  But then logcheck quickly becomes
more ad-hoc than if you just add a config option.  I'd think.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-3-686
Locale: LANG=en_GB, LC_CTYPE=en_GB (charmap=ISO-8859-1) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_GB.ISO-8859-1)

Versions of packages logcheck depends on:
ii  adduser          3.102                   Add and remove users and groups
ii  cron             3.0pl1-100              management of regular background p
ii  debconf          1.5.11                  Debian configuration management sy
ii  exim4            4.63-17                 metapackage to ease exim MTA (v4) 
ii  exim4-daemon-lig 4.63-17                 lightweight exim MTA (v4) daemon
ii  grep             2.5.1.ds2-6             GNU grep, egrep and fgrep
ii  lockfile-progs   0.1.10                  Programs for locking and unlocking
ii  logtail          1.2.53                  Print log file lines that have not
ii  mailx            1:8.1.2-0.20050715cvs-1 A simple mail user agent
ii  sysklogd [system 1.4.1-18                System Logging Daemon

Versions of packages logcheck recommends:
pn  logcheck-database             <none>     (no description available)

-- no debconf information