1ROTATELOGS(8) rotatelogs ROTATELOGS(8)
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6 rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs
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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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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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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.
26 -L linkname
28 -p program
30 If given, rotatelogs will execute the specified program every
31 time a new log file is opened. The filename of the newly opened
32 file is passed as the first argument to the program. If execut‐
33 ing after a rotation, the old log file is passed as the second
34 argument. rotatelogs does not wait for the specified program to
35 terminate before continuing to operate, and will not log any
36 error code returned on termination. The spawned program uses the
37 same stdin, stdout, and stderr as rotatelogs itself, and also
38 inherits the environment.
39 -f Causes the logfile to be opened immediately, as soon as rotatel‐
41 ogs starts, instead of waiting for the first logfile entry to be
42 read (for non-busy sites, there may be a substantial delay
43 between when the server is started and when the first request is
44 handled, meaning that the associated logfile does not "exist"
45 until then, which causes problems from some automated logging
46 tools)
47 -D Creates the parent directories of the path that the log file
49 will be placed in if they do not already exist. This allows
50 strftime(3) formatting to be used in the path and not just the
51 filename.
52 -t Causes the logfile to be truncated instead of rotated. This is
54 useful when a log is processed in real time by a command like
55 tail, and there is no need for archived data. No suffix will be
56 added to the filename, however format strings containing '%'
57 characters will be respected.
58 -v Produce verbose output on STDERR. The output contains the result
60 of the configuration parsing, and all file open and close
61 actions.
62 -e Echo logs through to stdout. Useful when logs need to be further
64 processed in real time by a further tool in the chain.
65 -c Create log file for each interval, even if empty.
67 -n number-of-files
69 Use a circular list of filenames without timestamps. With -n 3,
70 the series of log files opened would be "logfile", "logfile.1",
71 "logfile.2", then overwriting "logfile". Available in 2.4.5 and
72 later.
73 logfile
75 rotationtime
77 The time between log file rotations in seconds. The rotation
78 occurs at the beginning of this interval. For example, if the
79 rotation time is 3600, the log file will be rotated at the
80 beginning of every hour; if the rotation time is 86400, the log
81 file will be rotated every night at midnight. (If no data is
82 logged during an interval, no file will be created.)
83 filesize(B|K|M|G)
85 The maximum file size in followed by exactly one of the letters
86 B (Bytes), K (KBytes), M (MBytes) or G (GBytes). .PP When time
87 and size are specified, the size must be given after the time.
88 Rotation will occur whenever either time or size limits are
89 reached.
90 offset The number of minutes offset from UTC. If omitted, zero is
92 assumed and UTC is used. For example, to use local time in the
93 zone UTC -5 hours, specify a value of -300 for this argument. In
94 most cases, -l should be used instead of specifying an offset.
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98 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/logfile 86400" common
99 This creates the files /var/log/logfile.nnnn where nnnn is the system
103 time at which the log nominally starts (this time will always be a mul‐
104 tiple of the rotation time, so you can synchronize cron scripts with
105 it). At the end of each rotation time (here after 24 hours) a new log
106 is started.
107 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -l /var/log/logfile.%Y.%m.%d 86400" common
110 This creates the files /var/log/logfile.yyyy.mm.dd where yyyy is the
114 year, mm is the month, and dd is the day of the month. Logging will
115 switch to a new file every day at midnight, local time.
116 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/logfile 5M" common
119 This configuration will rotate the logfile whenever it reaches a size
123 of 5 megabytes.
124 ErrorLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/errorlog.%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M_%S 5M"
127 This configuration will rotate the error logfile whenever it reaches a
131 size of 5 megabytes, and the suffix to the logfile name will be created
132 of the form errorlog.YYYY-mm-dd-HH_MM_SS.
133 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -t /var/log/logfile 86400" common
136 This creates the file /var/log/logfile, truncating the file at startup
140 and then truncating the file once per day. It is expected in this sce‐
141 nario that a separate process (such as tail) would process the file in
142 real time.
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146 The following logfile format string substitutions should be supported
147 by all strftime(3) implementations, see the strftime(3) man page for
148 library-specific extensions.
149 · %A - full weekday name (localized)
152 · %a - 3-character weekday name (localized)
155 · %B - full month name (localized)
158 · %b - 3-character month name (localized)
161 · %c - date and time (localized)
164 · %d - 2-digit day of month
167 · %H - 2-digit hour (24 hour clock)
170 · %I - 2-digit hour (12 hour clock)
173 · %j - 3-digit day of year
176 · %M - 2-digit minute
179 · %m - 2-digit month
182 · %p - am/pm of 12 hour clock (localized)
185 · %S - 2-digit second
188 · %U - 2-digit week of year (Sunday first day of week)
191 · %W - 2-digit week of year (Monday first day of week)
194 · %w - 1-digit weekday (Sunday first day of week)
197 · %X - time (localized)
200 · %x - date (localized)
203 · %Y - 4-digit year
206 · %y - 2-digit year
209 · %Z - time zone name
212 · %% - literal `%'
215Apache HTTP Server 2020-06-10 ROTATELOGS(8)