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 ] [ -v ] [ -e ] [
11 -c ] logfile rotationtime|filesize(B|K|M|G) [ offset ]
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16 rotatelogs is a simple program for use in conjunction with Apache's
17 piped logfile feature. It supports rotation based on a time interval or
18 maximum size of the log.
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23 -l Causes the use of local time rather than GMT as the base for the
24 interval or for strftime(3) formatting with size-based rotation.
25 -L linkname
27 Causes a hard link to be made from the current logfile to the
28 specified link name. This can be used to watch the log continu‐
29 ously across rotations using a command like tail -F linkname.
30 -p program
32 If given, rotatelogs will execute the specified program every
33 time a new log file is opened. The filename of the newly opened
34 file is passed as the first argument to the program. If execut‐
35 ing after a rotation, the old log file is passed as the second
36 argument. rotatelogs does not wait for the specified program to
37 terminate before continuing to operate, and will not log any
38 error code returned on termination. The spawned program uses the
39 same stdin, stdout, and stderr as rotatelogs itself, and also
40 inherits the environment.
41 -f Causes the logfile to be opened immediately, as soon as rotatel‐
43 ogs starts, instead of waiting for the first logfile entry to be
44 read (for non-busy sites, there may be a substantial delay
45 between when the server is started and when the first request is
46 handled, meaning that the associated logfile does not "exist"
47 until then, which causes problems from some automated logging
48 tools)
49 -t Causes the logfile to be truncated instead of rotated. This is
51 useful when a log is processed in real time by a command like
52 tail, and there is no need for archived data. No suffix will be
53 added to the filename, however format strings containing '%'
54 characters will be respected.
55 -v Produce verbose output on STDERR. The output contains the result
57 of the configuration parsing, and all file open and close
58 actions.
59 -e Echo logs through to stdout. Useful when logs need to be further
61 processed in real time by a further tool in the chain.
62 -c Create log file for each interval, even if empty.
64 logfile
66 rotationtime
68 The time between log file rotations in seconds. The rotation
69 occurs at the beginning of this interval. For example, if the
70 rotation time is 3600, the log file will be rotated at the
71 beginning of every hour; if the rotation time is 86400, the log
72 file will be rotated every night at midnight. (If no data is
73 logged during an interval, no file will be created.)
74 filesize(B|K|M|G)
76 The maximum file size in followed by exactly one of the letters
77 B (Bytes), K (KBytes), M (MBytes) or G (GBytes). .PP When time
78 and size are specified, the size must be given after the time.
79 Rotation will occur whenever either time or size limits are
80 reached.
81 offset The number of minutes offset from UTC. If omitted, zero is
83 assumed and UTC is used. For example, to use local time in the
84 zone UTC -5 hours, specify a value of -300 for this argument. In
85 most cases, -l should be used instead of specifying an offset.
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89 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/logs/logfile 86400" common
90 This creates the files /var/logs/logfile.nnnn where nnnn is the system
94 time at which the log nominally starts (this time will always be a mul‐
95 tiple of the rotation time, so you can synchronize cron scripts with
96 it). At the end of each rotation time (here after 24 hours) a new log
97 is started.
98 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -l /var/logs/logfile.%Y.%m.%d 86400" common
101 This creates the files /var/logs/logfile.yyyy.mm.dd where yyyy is the
105 year, mm is the month, and dd is the day of the month. Logging will
106 switch to a new file every day at midnight, local time.
107 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/logs/logfile 5M" common
110 This configuration will rotate the logfile whenever it reaches a size
114 of 5 megabytes.
115 ErrorLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/logs/errorlog.%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M_%S 5M"
118 This configuration will rotate the error logfile whenever it reaches a
122 size of 5 megabytes, and the suffix to the logfile name will be created
123 of the form errorlog.YYYY-mm-dd-HH_MM_SS.
124 CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -t /var/logs/logfile 86400" common
127 This creates the file /var/logs/logfile, truncating the file at startup
131 and then truncating the file once per day. It is expected in this sce‐
132 nario that a separate process (such as tail) would process the file in
133 real time.
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137 The following logfile format string substitutions should be supported
138 by all strftime(3) implementations, see the strftime(3) man page for
139 library-specific extensions.
140 · %A - full weekday name (localized)
143 · %a - 3-character weekday name (localized)
146 · %B - full month name (localized)
149 · %b - 3-character month name (localized)
152 · %c - date and time (localized)
155 · %d - 2-digit day of month
158 · %H - 2-digit hour (24 hour clock)
161 · %I - 2-digit hour (12 hour clock)
164 · %j - 3-digit day of year
167 · %M - 2-digit minute
170 · %m - 2-digit month
173 · %p - am/pm of 12 hour clock (localized)
176 · %S - 2-digit second
179 · %U - 2-digit week of year (Sunday first day of week)
182 · %W - 2-digit week of year (Monday first day of week)
185 · %w - 1-digit weekday (Sunday first day of week)
188 · %X - time (localized)
191 · %x - date (localized)
194 · %Y - 4-digit year
197 · %y - 2-digit year
200 · %Z - time zone name
203 · %% - literal `%'
206Apache HTTP Server 2011-10-28 ROTATELOGS(8)