diff --git a/IkiWiki.pm b/IkiWiki.pm
index 560647e06..4fc37110b 100644
--- a/IkiWiki.pm
+++ b/IkiWiki.pm
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ sub defaultconfig () { #{{{
 	wiki_processor_regexp => qr/\[\[(\w+)\s+([^\]]*)\]\]/,
 	wiki_file_regexp => qr/(^[-[:alnum:]_.:\/+]+$)/,
 	verbose => 0,
+	syslog => 0,
 	wikiname => "wiki",
 	default_pageext => "mdwn",
 	cgi => 0,
@@ -119,12 +120,31 @@ sub error ($) { #{{{
 		print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
 		print misctemplate("Error", "<p>Error: @_</p>");
 	}
-	die @_;
+	log_message(error => @_);
+	exit(1);
 } #}}}
 
 sub debug ($) { #{{{
 	return unless $config{verbose};
-	if (! $config{cgi}) {
+	log_message(debug => @_);
+} #}}}
+
+my $log_open=0;
+sub log_message ($$) { #{{{
+	my $type=shift;
+
+	if ($config{syslog}) {
+		require Sys::Syslog;
+		unless ($log_open) {
+			Sys::Syslog::setlogsock('unix');
+			Sys::Syslog::openlog('ikiwiki', '', 'user');
+			$log_open=1;
+		}
+		eval {
+			Sys::Syslog::syslog($type, join(" ", @_));
+		}
+	}
+	elsif (! $config{cgi}) {
 		print "@_\n";
 	}
 	else {
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 2bf2665c7..7ed15dcb1 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -3,8 +3,9 @@ ikiwiki (1.20) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
   * Relicense the templates and basewiki under the 2-clause BSD license.
     Since these can easily become part of other people's websites, they
     should be under as permissive a license as possible.
+  * Add --syslog config option, to log to the syslog.
 
- -- Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>  Wed, 16 Aug 2006 16:30:44 -0400
+ -- Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>  Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:07:35 -0400
 
 ikiwiki (1.19) unstable; urgency=low
 
diff --git a/doc/ikiwiki.setup b/doc/ikiwiki.setup
index bef858d5b..e14991299 100644
--- a/doc/ikiwiki.setup
+++ b/doc/ikiwiki.setup
@@ -74,6 +74,9 @@ use IkiWiki::Setup::Standard {
 	#timeformat => '%c',
 	# Locale to use. Must be a UTF-8 locale.
 	#locale => 'en_US.UTF-8',
+	# Logging settings:
+	verbose => 0,
+	syslog => 0,
 	
 	# To add plugins, list them here.
 	#add_plugins => [qw{meta tag pagecount brokenlinks search smiley
diff --git a/doc/usage.mdwn b/doc/usage.mdwn
index 048072df6..e0c7800d5 100644
--- a/doc/usage.mdwn
+++ b/doc/usage.mdwn
@@ -212,10 +212,14 @@ configuration options of their own.
   Specify how to display the time or date. The format string is passed to the
   strftime(3) function.
 
-* --verbose
+* --verbose, --no-verbose
 
   Be vebose about what is being done.
 
+* --syslog, --no-syslog
+
+  Log to syslog.
+
 * --w3mmode, --no-w3mmode
 
   Enable [[w3mmode]], which allows w3m to use ikiwiki as a local CGI script,
diff --git a/ikiwiki.pl b/ikiwiki.pl
index fd9300fba..c9b53a031 100755
--- a/ikiwiki.pl
+++ b/ikiwiki.pl
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ sub getconfig () { #{{{
 			"setup|s=s" => \$config{setup},
 			"wikiname=s" => \$config{wikiname},
 			"verbose|v!" => \$config{verbose},
+			"syslog!" => \$config{syslog},
 			"rebuild!" => \$config{rebuild},
 			"refresh!" => \$config{refresh},
 			"wrappers!" => \$config{wrappers},