logrotate is designed to ease administration of systems that generate
large numbers of log files. It allows automatic 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 criterium for that log is
based on the log's size and logrotate 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 config 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.
If no command line arguments are given, logrotate will print
version and copyright information, along with a short usage summary. If
any errors occur while rotating logs, logrotate will exit with
non-zero status.
OPTIONS
-v
Turn on verbose mode.
-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.
-m, --mail <command>
Tells logrotate which command to use when mailing logs. This
command should accept two arguments: 1) the subject of the message, and
2) the recipient. The command must then read a message on standard input
and mail it to the recipient. The default mail command is /bin/mail
-s.
-s, --state <statefile>
Tells logrotate to use an alternate state file. This is useful
if logrotate is being run as a different user for various sets of
log files. The default state file is /var/lib/logrotate.status.
--usage
Prints a short usage message.
CONFIGURATION FILE
logrotate reads everything about the log files it should be handling
from the series of configuration files specified on the command line. Each
configuration file can set global options (local definitions override
global ones, and later definitions override earlier ones) and specify
logfiles to rotate. A simple configuration file looks like this:
The first few lines set global options; in the example, 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 both
/var/log/httpd/access.log and /var/log/httpd/error.log.
They are rotated whenever it grows over 100k in size, and the old logs
files are mailed (uncompressed) to www@my.org after going through 5
rotations, rather then being removed. The sharedscripts means that
the postrotate script will only be run once, not once for each
log which is rotated. Note that the double quotes around the first filename
at the beginning of this section allows logrotate to rotate logs with
spaces in the name. Normal shell quoting rules apply, with ', ", and \
characters supported.
The last section defines the parameters for all of the files in
/var/log/news. Each file is rotated on a monthly basis. This is
considered a single rotation directive and if errors occur for more then
one file, the log files are not compressed.
Please use wildcards with caution. If you specify *, logrotate will
rotate all files, including previously rotated ones. A way around this
is to use the olddir directive or a more exact wildcard (such as *.log).
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 by default. See also
nocompress.
compresscmd
Specifies which command to use to compress log files. The default is
gzip. See also compress.
uncompresscmd
Specifies which command to use to uncompress log files. The default is
gunzip.
compressext
Specifies which extension to use on compressed logfiles, if compression
is enabled. The default follows that of the configured compression
command.
compressoptions
Command line options may be passed to the compression program, if one is
in use. The default, for gzip, is "-9" (maximum compression).
copy
Make a copy of the log file, but don't change the original at all.
This option can be used, for instance, to make a snapshot of the current
log file, or when some other utility needs to truncate or pare the file.
When this option is used, the create option will have no effect,
as the old log file stays in place.
copytruncate
Truncate the original log file in place after creating 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 logfile
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 modeownergroup
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 values 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.
dateext
Archive old versions of log files adding a daily extension like YYYYMMDD
instead of simply adding a number.
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 logfile
and thus might continue writing to the previous log file for some time.
extension ext
Log files with ext extension can keep it after the rotation.
If compression is used, the compression extension (normally .gz)
appears after ext. For example you have a logfile named mylog.foo
and want to rotate it to mylog.1.foo.gz instead of mylog.foo.1.gz.
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 in alphabetic order
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
definition.
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.
mailfirst
When using the mail command, mail the just-rotated file,
instead of the about-to-expire file.
maillast
When using the mail command, mail the about-to-expire file,
instead of the just-rotated file (this is the default).
maxagecount
Remove rotated logs older than <count> days. The age is only checked
if the logfile is to be rotated. The files are mailed to the
configured address if maillast and mail are configured.
minsizesize
Log files are rotated when they grow bigger then size bytes, but not
before the additionally specified time interval (daily, weekly,
monthly, or yearly). The related size option is similar
except that it is mutually exclusive with the time interval options, and it
causes log files to be rotated without regard for the last rotation time.
When minsize is used, both the size and timestamp of a log file are
considered.
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.
nocopy
Do not copy the original log file and leave it in place.
(this overrides the copy option).
nocopytruncate
Do not truncate the original log file in place after creating a copy
(this overrides the copytruncate 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).
nodateext
Do not archive old versions of log files with date extension
(this overrides the dateext 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 normally resides in (this
overrides the olddir option).
nosharedscripts
Run prerotate and postrotate scripts for every log file which
is rotated (this is the default, and overrides the sharedscripts
option).
notifempty
Do not rotate the log if it is empty (this overrides 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,
and is assumed to be relative to the directory holding the log file
unless an absolute path name is specified. When this option is used all
old versions of the log end up in directory. 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 executed after the log file is
rotated. These directives may only appear inside of a log file definition.
See prerotate as well.
prerotate/endscript
The lines between prerotate and endscript (both of which
must appear on lines by themselves) are executed before the log file is
rotated and only if the log will actually be rotated. These directives
may only appear inside of a log file definition. See postrotate
as well.
firstaction/endscript
The lines between firstaction and endscript (both of which
must appear on lines by themselves) are executed once before all log
files that match the wildcarded pattern are rotated, before prerotate script
is run and only if at least one log will actually be rotated. These directives
may only appear inside of a log file definition. See lastaction as well.
lastaction/endscript
The lines between lastaction and endscript (both of which
must appear on lines by themselves) are executed once after all log
files that match the wildcarded pattern are rotated, after postrotate script
is run and only if at least one log is rotated. These directives may only
appear inside of a log file definition. See firstaction 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.
sharedscripts
Normally, prescript and postscript scripts are run for each
log which is rotated, meaning that a single script may be run multiple
times for log file entries which match multiple files (such as the
/var/log/news/* example). If sharedscript is specified, the scripts
are only run once, no matter how many logs match the wildcarded pattern.
However, if none of the logs in the pattern require rotating, the scripts
will not be run at all. This option overrides the nosharedscripts
option and implies create option.
start count
This is the number to use as the base for rotation. For example, if
you specify 0, the logs will be created with a .0 extension as they are
rotated from the original log files. If you specify 9, log files will
be created with a .9, skipping 0-8. Files will still be rotated the
number of times specified with the count directive.
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
extensions, the current taboo extension list is augmented, otherwise it
is replaced. At startup, the taboo extension list
contains .rpmorig, .rpmsave, ,v, .swp, .rpmnew, 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
rotation. 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.
yearly
Log files are rotated if the current year is not the same as the last rotation.
