Q: Server 5.2 missing SMTP Logs

First line in /etc/syslog.conf states:

# Note that flat file logs are now configured in /etc/asl.conf

When I check the content of /etc/asl/com.apple.mail it shows:

# mail facility has its own log file

? [= Facility mail] [<= Level debug] claim only

> /var/log/mail.log mode=0644 format=bsd rotate=seq compress file_max=5M all_max=50M

I then check /etc/asl.conf and can't see any reference to the above. So possibly the configuration lines for mail.log are missing in /etc/asl.conf.

I will add the content of /etc/asl/com.apple.mail to /etc/asl.conf as the syntax looks the same and restart mail. See what happens.

Sorry, no effect. I will try to find out what the real cause is.

Any luck?

I've configured the logging level to info across the mail.settings range of available options. But that had no effect either.

While it's not a show stopper, it certainly is annoying.

I've given up, let Apple fix their own bugs. And this new macOS Sierra and Server app sure have a lot.

Apple have a new log system in Sierra. It is not using the log files or asl.

The logs are in memory or a log db.

log -- Access system wide log messages created by os_log, os_trace and other logging systems.

You can read the smtpd log from terminal with this command.

log show --start "2016-10-16"  --end "2016-10-17" --predicate  'process == "smtpd"' --debug

Thank you for your answer but the output of your command line does not give nearly as much information as it used to have in previous versions. I want Apple to revert this chance and give us the old logging back. It is essential to have insight in the information of the old loggings as I need it to block persistent spammers and for other purposes.

For now I've created a shell script and put in in the crontab so I don't have to resolve to using Terminal and the SMTP log can be viewed in Server.app.

----------

#!/bin/bash

NOW=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")

/bin/rm /var/log/mail.log && touch /var/log/mail.log

/usr/bin/log show --start "$NOW"  --end "$NOW" --predicate  'process == "smtpd"' --info > /var/log/mail.log

----------