Control and Data Plane Logs

JUNOS software generates separate log messages to record events that occur on the system’s control and data planes.

The control plane logs include events that occur on the routing platform. The system sends control plane events to the eventd process on the Routing Engine, which then handles the events by using JUNOS policies and/or by generating system log messages. You can choose to send control plane logs to a file, user terminal, routing platform console, or remote machine. To generate control plane logs, use the syslog statement at the [system] hierarchy level
The data plane logs primarily include security events that the system has handled directly inside the data plane. How the system handles data plane events depends on the device:
- For J-series devices, the system sends data plane events to the eventd process on the Routing Engine to be processed, formatted, and written to system log files in a similar manner to control plane events.
- For SRX-series services gateways, the system streams already-processed data plane events directly to external log servers, bypassing the Routing Engine. If an event requires processing, the system sends the event to the eventd process on the Routing Engine.
To view data plane logs, use the log statement at the [security] hierarchy level.