Computer Science
LOGROTATE(8) LOGROTATE(8)
NAME
logrotate - rotates, compresses, and mails system logs
SYNOPSIS
logrotate [-dv] [-f|--force] [-s|--state file] con-
fig_file+
DESCRIPTION
logrotate is designed to ease administration of systems
that generate large numbers of log files. It allows auto-
matic rotation, compression, removal, and mailing of log
files. Each log file may be handled daily, weekly,
monthly, or when it grows too large.
Normally, logrotate is run as a daily cron job. It will
not modify a log multiple times in one day unless the cri-
terium for that log is based on the log's size and logro-
tate is being run multiple times each day, or unless the
-f or -force option is used.
Any number of config files may be given on the command
line. Later config files may override the options given in
earlier files, so the order in which the logrotate config
files are listed in is important. Normally, a single con-
fig file which includes any other config files which are
needed should be used. See below for more information on
how to use the include directive to accomplish this. If a
directory is given on the command line, every file in that
directory is used as a config file.
OPTIONS
-d Turns on debug mode and implies -v. In debug mode,
no changes will be made to the logs or to the
logrotate state file.
-f, --force
Tells logrotate to force the rotation, even if it
doesn't think this is necessary. Sometimes this is
useful after adding new entries to logrotate, or if
old log files have been removed by hand, as the new
files will be created, and logging will continue
correctly.
-s, --state <statefile>
Tells logrotate to use an alternate state file.
This is useful if logrotate is being run as a dif-
ferent user for various sets of log files. The
default state file is /var/lib/logrotate.status.
--usage
Prints the a short usage, version, and copyright
message.
CONFIGURATION FILE
logrotate reads everything about the log files it should
be handling from the series of configuration files speci-
fied on the command line. Each configuration file can set
global options (local definitions override global ones,
and later definitions override earlier ones) and specify a
logfile to rotate. A simple configuration file looks like
this:
# sample logrotate configuration file
errors sysadmin@my.org
compress
/var/log/messages {
rotate 5
weekly
postrotate
/sbin/killall -HUP syslogd
endscript
}
"/var/log/httpd/access.log" {
rotate 5
mail www@my.org
errors www@my.org
size=100k
postrotate
/sbin/killall -HUP httpd
endscript
}
/var/log/news/* {
monthly
rotate 2
missingok
errors newsadmin@my.org
postrotate
kill -HUP `cat /var/run/inn.pid`
endscript
nocompress
}
The first few lines set global options; any errors that
occur during log file processing are mailed to sysad-
min@my.org and logs are compressed after they are rotated.
Note that comments may appear anywhere in the config file
as long as the first non-whitespace character on the line
is a #.
The next section of the config files defined how to handle
the log file /var/log/messages. The log will go through
five weekly rotations before being removed. After the log
file has been rotated (but before the old version of the
log has been compressed), the command /sbin/killall -HUP
syslogd will be executed.
The next section defines the parameters for
/var/log/httpd/access.log. It is rotated whenever is
grows over 100k is size, and the old logs files are mailed
(uncompressed) to www@my.org after going through 5 rota-
tions, rather then being removed. Likewise, any errors
that occur while processing the log file are also mailed
to www@my.org (overriding the global errors directive).
Note that the double quotes around the filename at the
beginning of this section allows logrotate to rotate logs
with spaces in the name.
The last section definest the parameters for all of the
files in /var/log/news. Each file is rotated on a monthly
basis, and the errors are mailed to newsadmin@my.org. This
is considered a single rotation directive and if errors
occur for more then one file they are mailed in a single
message. In this case, the log files are not compressed.
Here is more information on the directives which may be
included in a logrotate configuration file:
compress
Old versions of log files are compressed with gzip.
See also nocompress.
copytruncate
Truncate the original log file in place after cre-
ating a copy, instead of moving the old log file
and optionally creating a new one, It can be used
when some program can not be told to close its log-
file and thus might continue writing (appending) to
the previous log file forever. Note that there is
a very small time slice between copying the file
and truncating it, so some logging data might be
lost. When this option is used, the create option
will have no effect, as the old log file stays in
place.
create mode owner group
Immediately after rotation (before the postrotate
script is run) the log file is created (with the
same name as the log file just rotated). mode
specifies the mode for the log file in octal (the
same as chmod(2)), owner specifies the user name
who will own the log file, and group specifies the
group the log file will belong to. Any of the log
file attributes may be omitted, in which case those
attributes for the new file will use the same val-
ues as the original log file for the omitted
attributes. This option can be disabled using the
nocreate option.
daily Log files are rotated every day.
delaycompress
Postpone compression of the previous log file to
the next rotation cycle. This has only effect when
used in combination with compress. It can be used
when some program can not be told to close its log-
file and thus might continue writing to the previ-
ous log file for some time.
errors address
Any errors that occur during log file processing
are mailed to the given address.
ifempty
Rotate the log file even if it is empty, overiding
the notifempty option (ifempty is the default).
include file_or_directory
Reads the file given as an argument as if it was
included inline where the include directive
appears. If a directory is given, most of the files
in that directory are read before processing of the
including file continues. The only files which are
ignored are files which are not regular files (such
as directories and named pipes) and files whose
names end with one of the taboo extensions, as
specified by the tabooext directive. The include
directive may not appear inside of a log file defi-
nition.
mail address
When a log is rotated out-of-existence, it is
mailed to address. If no mail should be generated
by a particular log, the nomail directive may be
used.
missingok
If the log file is missing, go on to the next one
without issuing an error message. See also
nomissingok.
monthly
Log files are rotated the first time logrotate is
run in a month (this is normally on the first day
of the month).
nocompress
Old versions of log files are not compressed with
gzip. See also compress.
nocopytruncate
Do not truncate the original log file in place
after creating a copy (this overrides the copytrun-
cate option).
nocreate
New log files are not created (this overrides the
create option).
nodelaycompress
Do not postpone compression of the previous log
file to the next rotation cycle (this overrides the
delaycompress option).
nomail Don't mail old log files to any address.
nomissingok
If a log file does not exist, issue an error. This
is the default.
noolddir
Logs are rotated in the same directory the log nor-
mally resides in (this overrides the olddir
option).
notifempty
Do not rotate the log if it is empty (this over-
rides the ifempty option).
olddir directory
Logs are moved into directory for rotation. The
directory must be on the same physical device as
the log file being rotated. When this option is
used all old versions of the log end up in direc-
tory. This option may be overriden by the noolddir
option.
postrotate/endscript
The lines between postrotate and endscript (both of
which must appear on lines by themselves) are exe-
cuted after the log file is rotated. These direc-
tives may only appear inside of a log file defini-
tion. See prerotate as well.
prerotate/endscript
The lines between prerotate and endscript (both of
which must appear on lines by themselves) are exe-
cuted before the log file is rotated. These direc-
tives may only appear inside of a log file defini-
tion. See postrotate as well.
rotate count
Log files are rotated <count> times before being
removed or mailed to the address specified in a
mail directive. If count is 0, old versions are
removed rather then rotated.
size size
Log files are rotated when they grow bigger then
size bytes. If size is followed by M, the size if
assumed to be in megabytes. If the k is used, the
size is in kilobytes. So size 100, size 100k, and
size 100M are all valid.
tabooext [+] list
The current taboo extension list is changed (see
the include directive for information on the taboo
extensions). If a + precedes the list of exten-
sions, the current taboo extension list is aug-
mented, otherwise it is replaced. At startup, the
taboo extension list contains .rpmorig, .rpmsave,
,v and ~.
weekly Log files are rotated if the current weekday is
less then the weekday of the last rotation or if
more then a week has passed since the last rota-
tion. This is normally the same as rotating logs on
the first day of the week, but it works better if
logrotate is not run every night.
FILES
/var/lib/logrotate.status Default state file.
SEE ALSO
gzip(1)
AUTHOR
Erik Troan <ewt@redhat.com>
Tue Jun 23 1998 1
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