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 er‐
36 ror 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 be‐
43 tween 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 -T Causes all but the initial logfile to be truncated when opened.
60 This is useful when the format string contains something that
61 will loop around, such as the day of the month. Available in
62 2.4.56 and later.
63 -v Produce verbose output on STDERR. The output contains the result
65 of the configuration parsing, and all file open and close ac‐
66 tions.
67 -e Echo logs through to stdout. Useful when logs need to be further
69 processed in real time by a further tool in the chain.
70 -c Create log file for each interval, even if empty.
72 -n number-of-files
74 Use a circular list of filenames without timestamps. This option
75 overwrites log files at startup and during rotation. With -n 3,
76 the series of log files opened would be "logfile", "logfile.1",
77 "logfile.2", then overwriting "logfile". When this program first
78 opens "logfile", the file will only be truncated if -t is also
79 provided. Every subsequent rotation will always begin with trun‐
80 cation of the target file. For size based rotation without -t
81 and existing log files in place, this option may result in unin‐
82 tuitive behavior such as initial log entries being sent to "log‐
83 file.1", and entries in "logfile.1" not being preserved even if
84 later "logfile.n" have not yet been used. Available in 2.4.5 and
85 later.
86 logfile
88 rotationtime
90 The time between log file rotations in seconds. The rotation oc‐
91 curs at the beginning of this interval. For example, if the ro‐
92 tation time is 3600, the log file will be rotated at the begin‐
93 ning of every hour; if the rotation time is 86400, the log file
94 will be rotated every night at midnight. (If no data is logged
95 during an interval, no file will be created.)
96 filesize(B|K|M|G)
98 The maximum file size in followed by exactly one of the letters
99 B (Bytes), K (KBytes), M (MBytes) or G (GBytes). .PP When time
100 and size are specified, the size must be given after the time.
101 Rotation will occur whenever either time or size limits are
102 reached.
103 offset The number of minutes offset from UTC. If omitted, zero is as‐
105 sumed and UTC is used. For example, to use local time in the
106 zone UTC -5 hours, specify a value of -300 for this argument. In
107 most cases, -l should be used instead of specifying an offset.
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111 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/logfile 86400" common
112 This creates the files /var/log/logfile.nnnn where nnnn is the system
116 time at which the log nominally starts (this time will always be a mul‐
117 tiple of the rotation time, so you can synchronize cron scripts with
118 it). At the end of each rotation time (here after 24 hours) a new log
119 is started.
120 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -l /var/log/logfile.%Y.%m.%d 86400" common
123 This creates the files /var/log/logfile.yyyy.mm.dd where yyyy is the
127 year, mm is the month, and dd is the day of the month. Logging will
128 switch to a new file every day at midnight, local time.
129 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/logfile 5M" common
132 This configuration will rotate the logfile whenever it reaches a size
136 of 5 megabytes.
137 ErrorLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/errorlog.%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M_%S 5M"
140 This configuration will rotate the error logfile whenever it reaches a
144 size of 5 megabytes, and the suffix to the logfile name will be created
145 of the form errorlog.YYYY-mm-dd-HH_MM_SS.
146 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -t /var/log/logfile 86400" common
149 This creates the file /var/log/logfile, truncating the file at startup
153 and then truncating the file once per day. It is expected in this sce‐
154 nario that a separate process (such as tail) would process the file in
155 real time.
156 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -T /var/log/logfile.%d 86400" common
159 If the server is started (or restarted) on the first of the month, this
163 appends to /var/log/logfile.01. When a log entry is written on the sec‐
164 ond of the month, /var/log/logfile.02 is truncated and new entries will
165 be added to the top. This example keeps approximately 1 months worth of
166 logs without external maintenance.
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170 The following logfile format string substitutions should be supported
171 by all strftime(3) implementations, see the strftime(3) man page for
172 library-specific extensions.
173 • %A - full weekday name (localized)
176 • %a - 3-character weekday name (localized)
179 • %B - full month name (localized)
182 • %b - 3-character month name (localized)
185 • %c - date and time (localized)
188 • %d - 2-digit day of month
191 • %H - 2-digit hour (24 hour clock)
194 • %I - 2-digit hour (12 hour clock)
197 • %j - 3-digit day of year
200 • %M - 2-digit minute
203 • %m - 2-digit month
206 • %p - am/pm of 12 hour clock (localized)
209 • %S - 2-digit second
212 • %U - 2-digit week of year (Sunday first day of week)
215 • %W - 2-digit week of year (Monday first day of week)
218 • %w - 1-digit weekday (Sunday first day of week)
221 • %X - time (localized)
224 • %x - date (localized)
227 • %Y - 4-digit year
230 • %y - 2-digit year
233 • %Z - time zone name
236 • %% - literal `%'
239Apache HTTP Server 2023-03-05 ROTATELOGS(8)