Are the messages sent by syslog clear or encrypted? Can they be encrypted?

[nakoruru1982]

Are the messages sent by syslog clear or encrypted?  Can they be encrypted?
(Platform independent)

[mutex]

they are sent in the clear.  The way to encrypt them is by tunnelling them over SSL.  There are some versions of syslog that support it natively, like rsyslog, and others that you have to cobble together a solution, using stunnel, etc.  A common denominator is the requirement to send syslog messages via TCP instead of UDP, and not all syslogd's can do that - I am not aware of ANY syslogd that comes with ANY OS that supports that. You'll have to use rsyslog or syslog-ng/stunnel.