Free Services for Rsyslog
=========================

*A personal word from Rainer, the lead developer of rsyslog:*

**The rsyslog community provides ample free support resources. Please
see our** `troubleshooting guide <troubleshooting/index.html>`_ **to get started.**

Every now and then I receive private mail with support questions. I
appreciate any feedback, but I must limit my resources so that I can
help drive a great logging system forward.

To do so, I have decided not to reply to unsolicited support emails, at
least not with a solution (but rather a link to this page ;)). I hope
this does not offend you. The reason is quite simple: If I do personal
support, you gain some advantage without contributing something back.
Think about it: if you ask your question on the public forum or mailing
list, others with the same problem can help you and, most importantly, even
years later find your post (and the answer) and get the problem solved.
So by solving your issue in public, you help create a great community
resource and also help your fellow users find solutions quicker. In
the long term, this also contributes to improved code because the more
questions users can find solutions to themselves, the fewer I need to
look at.

But it becomes even better: the rsyslog community is much broader than
Rainer ;) - there are other helpful members hanging around the public
places. They often answer questions, so that I do not need to look at
them (btw, once again a big "thank you", folks!). And, more important,
those folks have a different background than me. So they often either know
better how to solve your problem (e.g. because it is distro-specific) or
they know how to better phrase it (after all, I like abstract terms and
concepts ;)). So you do yourself a favor if you use the public places.

An excellent place to go to is the `rsyslog
forum <http://kb.monitorware.com/rsyslog-f40.html>`_ inside the
knowledge base (which in itself is a great place to visit!). For those
used to mailing lists, the `rsyslog mailing
list <http://lists.adiscon.net/mailman/listinfo/rsyslog>`_ also offers
excellent advise.

**Don't like to post your question in a public place?** Well, then you
should consider purchasing `rsyslog professional
support <http://www.rsyslog.com/professional-services/>`_. The fees are very low and help
fund the project. If you use rsyslog seriously inside a corporate
environment, there is no excuse for not getting one of the support
packages ;)

Of course, things are different when I ask you to mail me privately.
I'll usually do that when I think it makes sense, for example when we
exchange debug logs.

I hope you now understand the free support options and the reasoning for
them. I hope I haven't offended you with my words - this is not my
intention. I just needed to make clear why there are some limits on my
responsiveness. Happy logging!
