Delayed and sometimes incomplete log messages

[selvanair]

When openvpn is started by the service there is a rather long delay (up to ~1min) before messages appear in the log. When the service is stopped the log sometimes appear incomplete (using verb 4)

Especially when the config has an invlaid option and the openvpn process exits promptly, nothing appears in the log file. As openvpn flushes the output after every message, this looks like a buffering issue due to log redirection. Using --log instead of stdout redirection may be better.

[xkjyeah]

Is it alright to use synchronous IO? I was concerned about performance,
although for a log file the performance cost should be negligible

On Nov 11, 2016 23:54, "Selva Nair" notifications@github.com wrote:

When openvpn is started by the service there is a rather long delay (up to
~1min) before messages appear in the log. When the service is stopped the
log sometimes appear incomplete (using verb 4)

Especially when the config has an invlaid option and the openvpn exits
promptly, nothing appears in the log file. As openvpn flushes the output
after every message, this looks like a buffering issue due to log
redirection. Using --log instead of stdout redirection may be better.

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[selvanair]

With the logfile set to autoflush and use of exit event, loss of logs should be unlikely now. So unless anyone notices lost messages, leave it at it for now?

There are two minor issues left:
(i) WriteToLog should write only after checking something like (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(e.Data)) -- else EOF (once each for each stdin/stdout) etc causes some unwanted output in the log file at each restart of the process.
(ii) As per MSDN docs async IO needs a WaitForExit() without a timeout to ensure all output is captured when the process exits but we do not want to use WaitForexit() as it blocks.

In my view the best option is just to redirect stdin/stderr to NUL and use "--log logfilename" or "--log-append logfilename" in the command line. Let openvpn.exe handle the log file.