banip: /usr/bin/tail: unrecognized option: e - when using syslog-ng istead of logd

[djarosz]

Package Name

banip

Maintainer

(@dibdot)

OpenWrt Version

24.10.4

OpenWrt Target/Subtarget

x86/64

Steps to Reproduce

Install syslog-ng instead of logd and restart bain service and then check openwrt logs.
Possibly only creating /var/log/messages file will trigger this behavior.

Actual Behaviour

When used with syslog-ng banip logs error like one below

Dec  8 18:17:13 openwrt banIP-1.5.6-r7[16128]: start banIP processing (start, 1.5.6-r7)
Dec  8 18:17:13 openwrt banIP-1.5.6-r7[16128]: initialize banIP nftables namespace
Dec  8 18:17:13 openwrt banIP-1.5.6-r7[16128]: start banIP download processes
Dec  8 18:17:14 openwrt banIP-1.5.6-r7[16128]: start banIP domain lookup
Dec  8 18:17:14 openwrt banIP-1.5.6-r7[16128]: finish banIP processing
Dec  8 18:17:14 openwrt banIP-1.5.6-r7[16128]: start detached banIP log service (/usr/bin/tail)
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: /usr/bin/tail: unrecognized option: e
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: BusyBox v1.36.1 (2025-10-24 10:05:32 UTC) multi-call binary.
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]:
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: Usage: tail [OPTIONS] [FILE]...
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]:
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: Print last 10 lines of FILEs (or stdin) to.
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: With more than one FILE, precede each with a filename header.
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]:
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: 	-c [+]N[bkm]	Print last N bytes
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: 	-n N[bkm]	Print last N lines
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: 	-n +N[bkm]	Start on Nth line and print the rest
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: 			(b:*512 k:*1024 m:*1024^2)
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: 	-q		Never print headers
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: 	-v		Always print headers
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: 	-f		Print data as file grows
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: 	-F		Same as -f, but keep retrying
Dec  8 18:17:19 openwrt banip-service.sh[16128]: 	-s SECONDS	Wait SECONDS between reads with -f

It loks like when /var/log/messages exist on the system then bainip uses tail instead of logread to read logs.

Quick and dirty work around is to fore banip to still use logread (syslog-ng ships with wrapper logread implementation) by editing banip-service.sh

#ban_logreadfile="/var/log/messages"
# use non exising file to force to use logread instead of tail
ban_logreadfile="/var/log/messages-force-use-of-logread"

Confirmation Checklist

• The package is maintained in this repository.
• I understand that issues related to the base OpenWrt repository or LuCI repository will be closed.
• I am reporting an issue for OpenWrt, not an unsupported fork.

[dibdot]

Just a rough guess - Is this a Turris system? Which branch are we talking about?

[djarosz]

It's not Turris - even didn't know about its existence. This custom image custom packagesbuild using official openwrt image-builder for x86/64 archtecture. From the foot not from luci it LuCI openwrt-24.10 branch (25.340.26705~d88390b) [ OpenWrt 24.10.4 (r28959-29397011cc)]. So it i suppose its official main branch for 24.10.4

[dibdot]

OK, thanks. Anyway, that's an unsupported config. banIP only supports logd, not syslog-ng ... and the above reported "bug" comes from your dirty workaround ...

	if [ -f "${ban_logreadfile}" ]; then
		logread_cmd="${ban_logreadcmd} -qf ${ban_logreadfile} 2>/dev/null | ${ban_grepcmd} -e \"${ban_logterm%%??}\" 2>/dev/null"
		loglimit_cmd="${ban_logreadcmd} -qn ${ban_loglimit} ${ban_logreadfile} 2>/dev/null"
	else
		logread_cmd="${ban_logreadcmd} -fe \"${ban_logterm%%??}\" 2>/dev/null"
		loglimit_cmd="${ban_logreadcmd} -l ${ban_loglimit} 2>/dev/null"
	fi

[djarosz]

This and probably also this one as this seems to set ban_logreadfile only if this /var/log/messages if found in filesystem.

 [ -f "${ban_logreadfile}" ] && ban_logreadcmd="$(command -v tail)" || ban_logreadcmd="$(command -v logread)"

Ok if this is unsupported configuration to use syslog-ng lets not call it a bug. But to be clear we we understand each other - this error message was logged before a have added this "fix" of mine. After applying this workaround banip seems to work as expected as it uses logread command from syslog-ng package (not logd) which in turn read log messages from /var/log/messages.

Is this check for existence of ${ban_logreadfile}} som kind of underlying system detection code?

Any way thanks for reply and for banip :D