1ROTATELOGS(8)                     rotatelogs                     ROTATELOGS(8)
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NAME

6       rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs
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SYNOPSIS

10       rotatelogs [ -l ] [ -L linkname ] [ -p program ] [ -f ] [ -D ] [ -t ] [
11       -v ] [ -e ] [ -c ] [ -n number-of-files  ]  logfile  rotationtime|file‐
12       size(B|K|M|G) [ offset ]
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SUMMARY

17       rotatelogs  is  a  simple  program for use in conjunction with Apache's
18       piped logfile feature. It supports rotation based on a time interval or
19       maximum size of the log.
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OPTIONS

24       -l     Causes the use of local time rather than GMT as the base for the
25              interval or for strftime(3) formatting with size-based rotation.
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27       -L linkname
28              Causes a hard link to be made from the current  logfile  to  the
29              specified  link name. This can be used to watch the log continu‐
30              ously across rotations using a command like tail -F linkname.
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32       -p program
33              If given, rotatelogs will execute the  specified  program  every
34              time  a new log file is opened. The filename of the newly opened
35              file is passed as the first argument to the program. If  execut‐
36              ing  after  a rotation, the old log file is passed as the second
37              argument. rotatelogs does not wait for the specified program  to
38              terminate  before  continuing  to  operate, and will not log any
39              error code returned on termination. The spawned program uses the
40              same  stdin,  stdout,  and stderr as rotatelogs itself, and also
41              inherits the environment.
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43       -f     Causes the logfile to be opened immediately, as soon as rotatel‐
44              ogs starts, instead of waiting for the first logfile entry to be
45              read (for non-busy sites,  there  may  be  a  substantial  delay
46              between when the server is started and when the first request is
47              handled, meaning that the associated logfile  does  not  "exist"
48              until  then,  which  causes problems from some automated logging
49              tools)
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51       -D     Creates the parent directories of the path  that  the  log  file
52              will  be  placed  in  if  they do not already exist. This allows
53              strftime(3) formatting to be used in the path and not  just  the
54              filename.
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56       -t     Causes  the  logfile to be truncated instead of rotated. This is
57              useful when a log is processed in real time by  a  command  like
58              tail,  and there is no need for archived data. No suffix will be
59              added to the filename, however  format  strings  containing  '%'
60              characters will be respected.
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62       -v     Produce verbose output on STDERR. The output contains the result
63              of the configuration  parsing,  and  all  file  open  and  close
64              actions.
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66       -e     Echo logs through to stdout. Useful when logs need to be further
67              processed in real time by a further tool in the chain.
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69       -c     Create log file for each interval, even if empty.
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71       -n number-of-files
72              Use a circular list of filenames without timestamps. With -n  3,
73              the  series of log files opened would be "logfile", "logfile.1",
74              "logfile.2", then overwriting "logfile". Available in 2.4.5  and
75              later.
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77       logfile
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79       rotationtime
80              The  time  between  log  file rotations in seconds. The rotation
81              occurs at the beginning of this interval. For  example,  if  the
82              rotation  time  is  3600,  the  log  file will be rotated at the
83              beginning of every hour; if the rotation time is 86400, the  log
84              file  will  be  rotated  every night at midnight. (If no data is
85              logged during an interval, no file will be created.)
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87       filesize(B|K|M|G)
88              The maximum file size in followed by exactly one of the  letters
89              B  (Bytes),  K (KBytes), M (MBytes) or G (GBytes). .PP When time
90              and size are specified, the size must be given after  the  time.
91              Rotation  will  occur  whenever  either  time or size limits are
92              reached.
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94       offset The number of minutes offset  from  UTC.  If  omitted,  zero  is
95              assumed  and  UTC is used. For example, to use local time in the
96              zone UTC -5 hours, specify a value of -300 for this argument. In
97              most cases, -l should be used instead of specifying an offset.
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EXAMPLES

101            CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/logfile 86400" common
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105       This  creates  the files /var/log/logfile.nnnn where nnnn is the system
106       time at which the log nominally starts (this time will always be a mul‐
107       tiple  of  the  rotation time, so you can synchronize cron scripts with
108       it). At the end of each rotation time (here after 24 hours) a  new  log
109       is started.
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112            CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -l /var/log/logfile.%Y.%m.%d 86400" common
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116       This  creates  the  files /var/log/logfile.yyyy.mm.dd where yyyy is the
117       year, mm is the month, and dd is the day of  the  month.  Logging  will
118       switch to a new file every day at midnight, local time.
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121            CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/logfile 5M" common
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125       This  configuration  will rotate the logfile whenever it reaches a size
126       of 5 megabytes.
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129            ErrorLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/errorlog.%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M_%S 5M"
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133       This configuration will rotate the error logfile whenever it reaches  a
134       size of 5 megabytes, and the suffix to the logfile name will be created
135       of the form errorlog.YYYY-mm-dd-HH_MM_SS.
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138            CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -t /var/log/logfile 86400" common
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142       This creates the file /var/log/logfile, truncating the file at  startup
143       and  then truncating the file once per day. It is expected in this sce‐
144       nario that a separate process (such as tail) would process the file  in
145       real time.
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PORTABILITY

149       The  following  logfile format string substitutions should be supported
150       by all strftime(3) implementations, see the strftime(3)  man  page  for
151       library-specific extensions.
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154       · %A - full weekday name (localized)
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157       · %a - 3-character weekday name (localized)
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160       · %B - full month name (localized)
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163       · %b - 3-character month name (localized)
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166       · %c - date and time (localized)
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169       · %d - 2-digit day of month
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172       · %H - 2-digit hour (24 hour clock)
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175       · %I - 2-digit hour (12 hour clock)
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178       · %j - 3-digit day of year
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181       · %M - 2-digit minute
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184       · %m - 2-digit month
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187       · %p - am/pm of 12 hour clock (localized)
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190       · %S - 2-digit second
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193       · %U - 2-digit week of year (Sunday first day of week)
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196       · %W - 2-digit week of year (Monday first day of week)
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199       · %w - 1-digit weekday (Sunday first day of week)
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202       · %X - time (localized)
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205       · %x - date (localized)
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208       · %Y - 4-digit year
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211       · %y - 2-digit year
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214       · %Z - time zone name
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217       · %% - literal `%'
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222Apache HTTP Server                2018-07-06                     ROTATELOGS(8)
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