rs@centos.spam.futz.org wrote:

The '-Lf /dev/null' was to disable the default log file, because snmpd used to always open it, even if other log types were specified. Newer releases don't open the default log file unless no other logging method is specified, so the '-Lf /dev/null' can (and should) be dropped...

My observation indicates that there is more to it than this. I also never saw any snmpd messages in the syslog under CentOS 4.4 even though snmpd was started with -Lsd switch? It appears that in CentOS 4.4 the -Lsd was ignored. I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that behavior was because of the simultaneous use of -Lf /dev/null switch. With CentOS 4.5 snmpd now does something with the -Lsd switch. In this sense it appears that maybe a bug was actually fixed going from CentOS 4.4 to CentOS 4.5. However, I am not convinced that -Lsd is a good default.