Start the service

sudo service rsyslog start

Make sure its running

ps -A | grep rsyslog

If not, check for upstart errors

cat /var/log/upstart/rsyslog.log

Check for service start problems

dmesg | grep rsyslog

Manually run rsyslog in debug mode

rsyslogd -f/etc/rsyslog.conf -d -n > /var/log/rsyslogtest.txt