1LOGROTATE(8) System Administrator's Manual LOGROTATE(8)
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6 logrotate ‐ rotates, compresses, and mails system logs
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9 logrotate [--debug] [--verbose] [--log file] [--force] [--state file]
10 [--mail command] config_file [config_file2 ...]
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13 logrotate is designed to ease administration of systems that generate
14 large numbers of log files. It allows automatic rotation, compression,
15 removal, and mailing of log files. Each log file may be handled daily,
16 weekly, monthly, or when it grows too large.
17 Normally, logrotate is run as a daily cron job. It will not modify a
19 log more than once in one day unless the criterion for that log is
20 based on the log's size and logrotate is being run more than once each
21 day, or unless the -f or --force option is used.
22 Any number of config files may be given on the command line. Later con‐
24 fig files may override the options given in earlier files, so the order
25 in which the logrotate config files are listed is important. Normally,
26 a single config file which includes any other config files which are
27 needed should be used. See below for more information on how to use
28 the include directive to accomplish this. If a directory is given on
29 the command line, every file in that directory is used as a config
30 file.
31 If no command line arguments are given, logrotate will print version
33 and copyright information, along with a short usage summary. If any
34 errors occur while rotating logs, logrotate will exit with non-zero
35 status.
36
39 -?, --help
40 Prints help message.
41 -d, --debug
44 Turn on debug mode, which means that no changes are made to the
45 logs and the logrotate state file is not updated. Only debug
46 messages are printed.
47 -f, --force
50 Tells logrotate to force the rotation, even if it doesn't think
51 this is necessary. Sometimes this is useful after adding new
52 entries to a logrotate config file, or if old log files have
53 been removed by hand, as the new files will be created, and log‐
54 ging will continue correctly.
55 -l, --log file
58 Tells logrotate to log verbose output into the log_file. The
59 verbose output logged to that file is the same as when running
60 logrotate with -v switch. The log file is overwritten on every
61 logrotate execution.
62 -m, --mail command
65 Tells logrotate which command to use when mailing logs. This
66 command should accept the following arguments:
67 1) the subject of the message given with '-s subject'
69 2) the recipient.
70 The command must then read a message on standard input and mail
72 it to the recipient. The default mail command is /bin/mail.
73 -s, --state statefile
76 Tells logrotate to use an alternate state file. This is useful
77 if logrotate is being run as a different user for various sets
78 of log files. The default state file is /var/lib/logro‐
79 tate/logrotate.status.
80 --usage
83 Prints a short usage message.
84 -v, --verbose
87 Turns on verbose mode, for example to display messages during
88 rotation.
89 --version
92 Display version information.
93
96 logrotate reads everything about the log files it should be handling
97 from the series of configuration files specified on the command line.
98 Each configuration file can set global options (local definitions over‐
99 ride global ones, and later definitions override earlier ones) and
100 specify logfiles to rotate. A simple configuration file looks like
101 this:
102 # sample logrotate configuration file
104 compress
105 /var/log/messages {
107 rotate 5
108 weekly
109 postrotate
110 /usr/bin/killall -HUP syslogd
111 endscript
112 }
113 "/var/log/httpd/access.log" /var/log/httpd/error.log {
115 rotate 5
116 mail recipient@example.org
117 size 100k
118 sharedscripts
119 postrotate
120 /usr/bin/killall -HUP httpd
121 endscript
122 }
123 /var/log/news/* {
125 monthly
126 rotate 2
127 olddir /var/log/news/old
128 missingok
129 postrotate
130 kill -HUP $(cat /var/run/inn.pid)
131 endscript
132 nocompress
133 }
134 ~/log/*.log {}
136 The first few lines set global options; in the example, logs are com‐
140 pressed after they are rotated. Note that comments may appear anywhere
141 in the config file as long as the first non-whitespace character on the
142 line is a #.
143 Values are separated from directives by whitespace and/or an optional
145 =. Numbers must be specified in a format understood by strtoul(3).
146 The next section of the config file defines how to handle the log file
148 /var/log/messages. The log will go through five weekly rotations before
149 being removed. After the log file has been rotated (but before the old
150 version of the log has been compressed), the command /usr/bin/killall
151 -HUP syslogd will be executed.
152 The next section defines the parameters for both
154 /var/log/httpd/access.log and /var/log/httpd/error.log. Each is
155 rotated whenever it grows over 100k in size, and the old logs files are
156 mailed (uncompressed) to recipient@example.org after going through 5
157 rotations, rather than being removed. The sharedscripts means that the
158 postrotate script will only be run once (after the old logs have been
159 compressed), not once for each log which is rotated. Note that log
160 file names may be enclosed in quotes (and that quotes are required if
161 the name contains spaces). Normal shell quoting rules apply, with ',
162 ", and \ characters supported.
163 The next section defines the parameters for all of the files in
165 /var/log/news. Each file is rotated on a monthly basis. This is con‐
166 sidered a single rotation directive and if errors occur for more than
167 one file, the log files are not compressed.
168 The last section uses tilde expansion to rotate log files in the home
170 directory of the current user. This is only available, if your glob
171 library supports tilde expansion. GNU glob does support this.
172 Please use wildcards with caution. If you specify *, logrotate will
174 rotate all files, including previously rotated ones. A way around this
175 is to use the olddir directive or a more exact wildcard (such as
176 *.log).
177 Here is more information on the directives which may be included in a
179 logrotate configuration file:
180 DIRECTIVES
183 These directives may be included in a logrotate configuration file:
184 compress
187 Old versions of log files are compressed with gzip(1) by
188 default. See also nocompress.
189 compresscmd
192 Specifies which command to use to compress log files. The
193 default is gzip(1). See also compress.
194 uncompresscmd
197 Specifies which command to use to uncompress log files. The
198 default is gunzip(1).
199 compressext
202 Specifies which extension to use on compressed logfiles, if com‐
203 pression is enabled. The default follows that of the configured
204 compression command.
205 compressoptions
208 Command line options may be passed to the compression program,
209 if one is in use. The default, for gzip(1), is "-6" (biased
210 towards high compression at the expense of speed). If you use a
211 different compression command, you may need to change the com‐
212 pressoptions to match.
213 copy Make a copy of the log file, but don't change the original at
217 all. This option can be used, for instance, to make a snapshot
218 of the current log file, or when some other utility needs to
219 truncate or parse the file. When this option is used, the cre‐
220 ate option will have no effect, as the old log file stays in
221 place.
222 copytruncate
225 Truncate the original log file to zero size in place after cre‐
226 ating a copy, instead of moving the old log file and optionally
227 creating a new one. It can be used when some program cannot be
228 told to close its logfile and thus might continue writing
229 (appending) to the previous log file forever. Note that there
230 is a very small time slice between copying the file and truncat‐
231 ing it, so some logging data might be lost. When this option is
232 used, the create option will have no effect, as the old log file
233 stays in place.
234 create mode owner group, create owner group
237 Immediately after rotation (before the postrotate script is run)
238 the log file is created (with the same name as the log file just
239 rotated). mode specifies the mode for the log file in octal
240 (the same as chmod(2)), owner specifies the user name who will
241 own the log file, and group specifies the group the log file
242 will belong to. Any of the log file attributes may be omitted,
243 in which case those attributes for the new file will use the
244 same values as the original log file for the omitted attributes.
245 This option can be disabled using the nocreate option.
246 createolddir mode owner group
249 If the directory specified by olddir directive does not exist,
250 it is created. mode specifies the mode for the olddir directory
251 in octal (the same as chmod(2)), owner specifies the user name
252 who will own the olddir directory, and group specifies the group
253 the olddir directory will belong to. This option can be disabled
254 using the nocreateolddir option.
255 daily Log files are rotated every day.
259 dateext
262 Archive old versions of log files adding a date extension like
263 YYYYMMDD instead of simply adding a number. The extension may be
264 configured using the dateformat and dateyesterday options.
265 dateformat format_string
268 Specify the extension for dateext using the notation similar to
269 strftime(3) function. Only %Y %m %d %H %M %S %V and %s speci‐
270 fiers are allowed. The default value is -%Y%m%d except hourly,
271 which uses -%Y%m%d%H as default value. Note that also the char‐
272 acter separating log name from the extension is part of the
273 dateformat string. The system clock must be set past Sep 9th
274 2001 for %s to work correctly. Note that the datestamps gener‐
275 ated by this format must be lexically sortable (that is first
276 the year, then the month then the day. For example 2001/12/01 is
277 ok, but 01/12/2001 is not, since 01/11/2002 would sort lower
278 while it is later). This is because when using the rotate
279 option, logrotate sorts all rotated filenames to find out which
280 logfiles are older and should be removed.
281 dateyesterday
284 Use yesterday's instead of today's date to create the dateext
285 extension, so that the rotated log file has a date in its name
286 that is the same as the timestamps within it.
287 datehourago
290 Use hour ago instead of current date to create the dateext
291 extension, so that the rotated log file has a hour in its name
292 that is the same as the timestamps within it. Useful with
293 rotate hourly.
294 delaycompress
297 Postpone compression of the previous log file to the next rota‐
298 tion cycle. This only has effect when used in combination with
299 compress. It can be used when some program cannot be told to
300 close its logfile and thus might continue writing to the previ‐
301 ous log file for some time.
302 extension ext
305 Log files with ext extension can keep it after the rotation. If
306 compression is used, the compression extension (normally .gz)
307 appears after ext. For example you have a logfile named
308 mylog.foo and want to rotate it to mylog.1.foo.gz instead of
309 mylog.foo.1.gz.
310 hourly Log files are rotated every hour. Note that usually logrotate is
313 configured to be run by cron daily. You have to change this con‐
314 figuration and run logrotate hourly to be able to really rotate
315 logs hourly.
316 addextension ext
319 Log files are given the final extension ext after rotation. If
320 the original file already ends with ext, the extension is not
321 duplicated, but merely moved to the end, that is both filename
322 and filenameext would get rotated to filename.1ext. If compres‐
323 sion is used, the compression extension (normally .gz) appears
324 after ext.
325 ifempty
328 Rotate the log file even if it is empty, overriding the
329 notifempty option (ifempty is the default).
330 include file_or_directory
333 Reads the file given as an argument as if it was included inline
334 where the include directive appears. If a directory is given,
335 most of the files in that directory are read in alphabetic order
336 before processing of the including file continues. The only
337 files which are ignored are files which are not regular files
338 (such as directories and named pipes) and files whose names end
339 with one of the taboo extensions or patterns, as specified by
340 the tabooext or taboopat directives, respectively.
341 mail address
344 When a log is rotated out of existence, it is mailed to address.
345 If no mail should be generated by a particular log, the nomail
346 directive may be used.
347 mailfirst
350 When using the mail command, mail the just-rotated file, instead
351 of the about-to-expire file.
352 maillast
355 When using the mail command, mail the about-to-expire file,
356 instead of the just-rotated file (this is the default).
357 minage count
360 Do not rotate logs which are less than <count> days old.
361 maxage count
364 Remove rotated logs older than <count> days. The age is only
365 checked if the logfile is to be rotated. The files are mailed to
366 the configured address if maillast and mail are configured.
367 maxsize size
370 Log files are rotated when they grow bigger than size bytes even
371 before the additionally specified time interval (daily, weekly,
372 monthly, or yearly). The related size option is similar except
373 that it is mutually exclusive with the time interval options,
374 and it causes log files to be rotated without regard for the
375 last rotation time. When maxsize is used, both the size and
376 timestamp of a log file are considered.
377 minsize size
380 Log files are rotated when they grow bigger than size bytes, but
381 not before the additionally specified time interval (daily,
382 weekly, monthly, or yearly). The related size option is similar
383 except that it is mutually exclusive with the time interval
384 options, and it causes log files to be rotated without regard
385 for the last rotation time. When minsize is used, both the size
386 and timestamp of a log file are considered.
387 missingok
390 If the log file is missing, go on to the next one without issu‐
391 ing an error message. See also nomissingok.
392 monthly
395 Log files are rotated the first time logrotate is run in a month
396 (this is normally on the first day of the month).
397 nocompress
400 Old versions of log files are not compressed. See also compress.
401 nocopy Do not copy the original log file and leave it in place. (this
404 overrides the copy option).
405 nocopytruncate
408 Do not truncate the original log file in place after creating a
409 copy (this overrides the copytruncate option).
410 nocreate
413 New log files are not created (this overrides the create
414 option).
415 nocreateolddir
418 olddir directory is not created by logrotate when it does not
419 exist.
420 nodelaycompress
423 Do not postpone compression of the previous log file to the next
424 rotation cycle (this overrides the delaycompress option).
425 nodateext
428 Do not archive old versions of log files with date extension
429 (this overrides the dateext option).
430 nomail Do not mail old log files to any address.
433 nomissingok
436 If a log file does not exist, issue an error. This is the
437 default.
438 noolddir
441 Logs are rotated in the directory they normally reside in (this
442 overrides the olddir option).
443 nosharedscripts
446 Run prerotate and postrotate scripts for every log file which is
447 rotated (this is the default, and overrides the sharedscripts
448 option). The absolute path to the log file is passed as first
449 argument to the script. If the scripts exit with error, the
450 remaining actions will not be executed for the affected log
451 only.
452 noshred
455 Do not use shred when deleting old log files. See also shred.
456 notifempty
459 Do not rotate the log if it is empty (this overrides the ifempty
460 option).
461 olddir directory
464 Logs are moved into directory for rotation. The directory must
465 be on the same physical device as the log file being rotated,
466 unless copy, copytruncate or renamecopy option is used. The
467 directory is assumed to be relative to the directory holding the
468 log file unless an absolute path name is specified. When this
469 option is used all old versions of the log end up in directory.
470 This option may be overridden by the noolddir option.
471 postrotate/endscript
474 The lines between postrotate and endscript (both of which must
475 appear on lines by themselves) are executed (using /bin/sh)
476 after the log file is rotated. These directives may only appear
477 inside a log file definition. Normally, the absolute path to the
478 log file is passed as first argument to the script. If shared‐
479 scripts is specified, whole pattern is passed to the script.
480 See also prerotate. See sharedscripts and nosharedscripts for
481 error handling.
482 prerotate/endscript
485 The lines between prerotate and endscript (both of which must
486 appear on lines by themselves) are executed (using /bin/sh)
487 before the log file is rotated and only if the log will actually
488 be rotated. These directives may only appear inside a log file
489 definition. Normally, the absolute path to the log file is
490 passed as first argument to the script. If sharedscripts is
491 specified, whole pattern is passed to the script. See also
492 postrotate. See sharedscripts and nosharedscripts for error
493 handling.
494 firstaction/endscript
497 The lines between firstaction and endscript (both of which must
498 appear on lines by themselves) are executed (using /bin/sh) once
499 before all log files that match the wildcarded pattern are
500 rotated, before prerotate script is run and only if at least one
501 log will actually be rotated. These directives may only appear
502 inside a log file definition. Whole pattern is passed to the
503 script as first argument. If the script exits with error, no
504 further processing is done. See also lastaction.
505 lastaction/endscript
508 The lines between lastaction and endscript (both of which must
509 appear on lines by themselves) are executed (using /bin/sh) once
510 after all log files that match the wildcarded pattern are
511 rotated, after postrotate script is run and only if at least one
512 log is rotated. These directives may only appear inside a log
513 file definition. Whole pattern is passed to the script as first
514 argument. If the script exits with error, just an error message
515 is shown (as this is the last action). See also firstaction.
516 preremove/endscript
519 The lines between preremove and endscript (both of which must
520 appear on lines by themselves) are executed (using /bin/sh) once
521 just before removal of a log file. The logrotate will pass the
522 name of file which is soon to be removed. See also firstaction.
523 rotate count
526 Log files are rotated count times before being removed or mailed
527 to the address specified in a mail directive. If count is 0, old
528 versions are removed rather than rotated. Default is 0.
529 renamecopy
532 Log file is renamed to temporary filename in the same directory
533 by adding ".tmp" extension to it. After that, postrotate script
534 is run and log file is copied from temporary filename to final
535 filename. This allows storing rotated log files on the different
536 devices using olddir directive. In the end, temporary filename
537 is removed.
538 size size
541 Log files are rotated only if they grow bigger than size bytes.
542 If size is followed by k, the size is assumed to be in kilo‐
543 bytes. If the M is used, the size is in megabytes, and if G is
544 used, the size is in gigabytes. So size 100, size 100k, size
545 100M and size 100G are all valid.
546 sharedscripts
549 Normally, prerotate and postrotate scripts are run for each log
550 which is rotated and the absolute path to the log file is passed
551 as first argument to the script. That means a single script may
552 be run multiple times for log file entries which match multiple
553 files (such as the /var/log/news/* example). If sharedscripts is
554 specified, the scripts are only run once, no matter how many
555 logs match the wildcarded pattern, and whole pattern is passed
556 to them. However, if none of the logs in the pattern require
557 rotating, the scripts will not be run at all. If the scripts
558 exit with error, the remaining actions will not be executed for
559 any logs. This option overrides the nosharedscripts option and
560 implies create option.
561 shred Delete log files using shred -u instead of unlink(). This
564 should ensure that logs are not readable after their scheduled
565 deletion; this is off by default. See also noshred.
566 shredcycles count
569 Asks GNU shred(1) to overwrite log files count times before
570 deletion. Without this option, shred's default will be used.
571 start count
574 This is the number to use as the base for rotation. For example,
575 if you specify 0, the logs will be created with a .0 extension
576 as they are rotated from the original log files. If you specify
577 9, log files will be created with a .9, skipping 0-8. Files
578 will still be rotated the number of times specified with the
579 rotate directive.
580 su user group
583 Rotate log files set under this user and group instead of using
584 default user/group (usually root). user specifies the user name
585 used for rotation and group specifies the group used for rota‐
586 tion. If the user/group you specify here does not have suffi‐
587 cient privilege to make files with the ownership you've speci‐
588 fied in a create instruction, it will cause an error.
589 tabooext [+] list
592 The current taboo extension list is changed (see the include
593 directive for information on the taboo extensions). If a + pre‐
594 cedes the list of extensions, the current taboo extension list
595 is augmented, otherwise it is replaced. At startup, the taboo
596 extension list ,v, .cfsaved, .disabled, .dpkg-bak, .dpkg-del,
597 .dpkg-dist, .dpkg-new, .dpkg-old, .rhn-cfg-tmp-*, .rpmnew,
598 .rpmorig, .rpmsave, .swp, .ucf-dist, .ucf-new, .ucf-old, ~
599 taboopat [+] list
602 The current taboo glob pattern list is changed (see the include
603 directive for information on the taboo extensions and patterns).
604 If a + precedes the list of patterns, the current taboo pattern
605 list is augmented, otherwise it is replaced. At startup, the
606 taboo pattern list is empty.
607 weekly [weekday]
610 Log files are rotated once each weekday, or if the date is
611 advanced by at least 7 days since the last rotation (while
612 ignoring the exact time). The weekday interpretation is follow‐
613 ing: 0 means Sunday, 1 means Monday, ..., 6 means Saturday; the
614 special value 7 means each 7 days, irrespectively of weekday.
615 Defaults to 0 if the weekday argument is omitted.
616 yearly Log files are rotated if the current year is not the same as the
619 last rotation.
620
623 /var/lib/logrotate/logrotate.status Default state file.
624 /etc/logrotate.conf Configuration options.
625
628 chmod(2), gunzip(1), gzip(1), mail(1), shred(1), strftime(3), str‐
629 toul(3), <https://github.com/logrotate/logrotate>
630
633 Erik Troan, Preston Brown, Jan Kaluza.
634 <https://github.com/logrotate/logrotate>
636Linux 3.14.0 LOGROTATE(8)