promtail

hi,
i like to understand how promtail collect data from pods.
in promtail configuration can be specified where all the applications from containers within pod log things.
ex. path: /var/log/*log

then promtail read from here and send it to loki.

other way is to read from a central server where syslog from other nodes sent log.right?
can i send the logs sent by syslog to promtail instead of syslog to write in log file?is this recommended?