The entry that can be added to the syslog.conf file to have all syslog messages generated by a system displayed on console 12 is A. . /dev/tty12. This entry consists of a selector field and an action field, separated by a space or a tab. The selector field specifies the pattern of facilities and priorities that match the action. The action field specifies the destination where the matching messages are sent. In this case, the selector field is ., which means all facilities and all priorities. The action field is /dev/tty12, which is the device file for the console 12. This means that any syslog message generated by the system will be displayed on the console 12, regardless of its facility or priority. This can be useful for debugging or monitoring purposes, but it can also be very noisy and distracting, as it will show all kinds of messages, including debug, info, notice, warning, err, crit, alert, and emerg12.
The other options are not correct. Option B. /var/log/messages | /dev/tty12 is invalid, as it uses a pipe (|) character in the selector field, which is not allowed. The pipe character can only be used in the action field to indicate that the matching messages are piped to an external program1. Option C. | /dev/tty12 is also invalid, as it has an empty selector field, which is not allowed. The selector field must specify at least one facility and one priority1. Option D. syslog tty12 is also invalid, as it has a missing period (.) between the facility and the priority in the selector field, and a missing slash (/) before the device file in the action field. The correct syntax for this option would be syslog.* /dev/tty12, which would display only the messages with the syslog facility and any priority on the console 121. Option E. mail.* /dev/tty12 is valid, but it would not display all syslog messages generated by a system, but only the messages with the mail facility and any priority on the console 12. This would exclude the messages from other facilities, such as auth, cron, daemon, kern, user, etc1. References: 1: syslog.conf (5) - Linux man page 2: Beginner’s Guide to Syslogs in Linux [Real World Examples]
