PRI

networking

Stands for: priority value (syslog)

The leading field in a syslog message encoding facility and severity.

The priority value is the number in angle brackets at the start of a syslog line. It packs the facility and severity into one integer, from which both can be recovered.

In syslog the priority is the first field, a single number encoding both the facility that generated the message and its severity. Splitting it back out is arithmetic: divide by eight for the facility, take the remainder for the severity.

That encoding is the reason syslog filtering is often set up wrongly. A rule written against a raw priority value catches a specific facility and severity combination rather than the severity across all sources, and a collector configured to keep everything above a threshold may silently drop a facility nobody thought about. Knowing the two are packed together is what turns a confusing filter into an obvious one.

Also known as: pri

← All glossary entries