logrotate ‐ rotates, compresses, and mails system logs
logrotate [
--force] [
--debug] [
--state
file] [
--skip-state-lock] [
--wait-for-state-lock] [
--verbose] [
--log file] [
--mail command]
config_file [
config_file2 ...]
logrotate is designed to ease administration of systems that generate
large numbers of log files. It allows automatic rotation, compression,
removal, and mailing of log files. Each log file may be handled daily, weekly,
monthly, or when it grows too large.
Normally,
logrotate is run as a daily cron job. It will not modify a log
more than once in one day unless the criterion for that log is based on the
log's size and
logrotate is being run more than once each day, or
unless the
-f or
--force option is used.
Any number of config files may be given on the command line. Later config files
may override the options given in earlier files, so the order in which the
logrotate config files are listed is important. Normally, a single
config file which includes any other config files which are needed should be
used. See below for more information on how to use the
include
directive to accomplish this. If a directory is given on the command line,
every file in that directory is used as a config file.
If no command line arguments are given,
logrotate will print version and
copyright information, along with a short usage summary. If any errors occur
while rotating logs,
logrotate will exit with non-zero status, although
the state file will be updated.
-
-f, --force
- Tells logrotate to force the rotation, even if it
doesn't think this is necessary. Sometimes this is useful after adding new
entries to a logrotate config file, or if old log files have been
removed by hand, as the new files will be created, and logging will
continue correctly.
-
-d, --debug
- Turn on debug mode, which means that no changes are made to
the logs and the logrotate state file is not updated. Only debug
messages are printed.
-
-s, --state statefile
- Tells logrotate to use an alternate state file. This
is useful if logrotate is being run as a different user for various
sets of log files. To prevent parallel execution logrotate by
default acquires a lock on the state file, if it cannot be acquired
logrotate will exit with value 3. The default state file is
/var/lib/logrotate/status. If /dev/null is given as the
state file, then logrotate will not try to lock or write the state
file.
- --skip-state-lock
- Do not lock the state file, for example if locking is
unsupported or prohibited.
- --wait-for-state-lock
- Wait until lock on the state file is released by another
logrotate process. This option may cause logrotate to wait indefinitely.
Use with caution.
-
-v, --verbose
- Turns on verbose mode, for example to display messages
during rotation.
-
-l, --log file
- Tells logrotate to log verbose output into the
log_file. The verbose output logged to that file is the same as when
running logrotate with -v switch. The log file is
overwritten on every logrotate execution.
-
-m, --mail command
- Tells logrotate which command to use when mailing
logs. This command should accept the following arguments:
- 1) the subject of the message given with '-s subject'
2) the recipient.
- The command must then read a message on standard input and
mail it to the recipient. The default mail command is
/usr/bin/mail.
- --usage
- Prints a short usage message.
-
-?, --help
- Prints help message.
- --version
- Display version information.
logrotate reads everything about the log files it should be handling from
the series of configuration files specified on the command line. Each
configuration file can set global options (local definitions override global
ones, and later definitions override earlier ones) and specify logfiles to
rotate. Global options do not affect preceding include directives. A simple
configuration file looks like this:
# sample logrotate configuration file
compress
/var/log/messages {
rotate 5
weekly
postrotate
/usr/bin/killall -HUP syslogd
endscript
}
"/var/log/httpd/access.log" /var/log/httpd/error.log {
rotate 5
mail [email protected]
size 100k
sharedscripts
postrotate
/usr/bin/killall -HUP httpd
endscript
}
/var/log/news/* {
monthly
rotate 2
olddir /var/log/news/old
missingok
sharedscripts
postrotate
kill -HUP $(cat /var/run/inn.pid)
endscript
nocompress
}
~/log/*.log {}
The first few lines set global options; in the example, logs are compressed
after they are rotated. Note that comments may appear anywhere in the config
file as long as the first non-whitespace character on the line is a
#.
Values are separated from directives by whitespace and/or an optional =. Numbers
must be specified in a format understood by
strtoul(3).
The next section of the config file defines how to handle the log file
/var/log/messages. The log will go through five weekly rotations before
being removed. After the log file has been rotated (but before the old version
of the log has been compressed), the command
/usr/bin/killall -HUP
syslogd will be executed.
The next section defines the parameters for both
/var/log/httpd/access.log and
/var/log/httpd/error.log. Each is
rotated whenever it grows over 100 kilobytes in size, and the old logs
files are mailed (uncompressed) to
[email protected] after going through 5
rotations, rather than being removed. The
sharedscripts means that the
postrotate script will only be run once (after the old logs have been
compressed), not once for each log which is rotated. Note that log file names
may be enclosed in quotes (and that quotes are required if the name contains
spaces). Normal shell quoting rules apply, with
',
", and
\ characters supported.
The next section defines the parameters for all of the files in
/var/log/news. Each file is rotated on a monthly basis.
The last section uses tilde expansion to rotate log files in the home directory
of the current user. This is only available, if your glob library supports
tilde expansion. GNU glob does support this.
Please use wildcards with caution. If you specify *,
logrotate will
rotate all files, including previously rotated ones. A way around this is to
use the
olddir directive or a more exact wildcard (such as *.log).
Please note, by default when using
systemd(1), the option
ProtectSystem=full is set in the
logrotate.service file. This
prevents
logrotate from modifying logs in
/etc and
/usr.
Here is more information on the directives which may be included in a
logrotate configuration file:
These directives may be included in a
logrotate configuration file:
-
rotate count
- Log files are rotated count times before being
removed or mailed to the address specified in a mail directive. If
count is 0, old versions are removed rather than rotated. If
count is -1, old logs are not removed at all, except they are
affected by maxage (use with caution, may waste performance and
disk space). Default is 0.
-
olddir directory
- Logs are moved into directory for rotation. The
directory must be on the same physical device as the log file being
rotated, unless copy, copytruncate or renamecopy
option is used. The directory is assumed to be relative to the
directory holding the log file unless an absolute path name is specified.
When this option is used all old versions of the log end up in
directory. This option may be overridden by the noolddir
option.
- noolddir
- Logs are rotated in the directory they normally reside in
(this overrides the olddir option).
-
su user group
- Rotate log files set under this user and group instead of
using default user/group (usually root). user specifies the user
used for rotation and group specifies the group used for rotation
(see the section USER AND GROUP for details). If the user/group you
specify here does not have sufficient privilege to make files with the
ownership you've specified in a create directive, it will cause an
error. If logrotate runs with root privileges, it is recommended to
use the su directive to rotate files in directories that are
directly or indirectly in control of non-privileged users.
- hourly
- Log files are rotated every hour. Note that usually
logrotate is configured to be run by cron daily (or by
logrotate.timer when using systemd(1)). You have to change
this configuration and run logrotate hourly to be able to really
rotate logs hourly.
- daily
- Log files are rotated every day.
-
weekly [weekday]
- Log files are rotated once each weekday, or if the
date is advanced by at least 7 days since the last rotation (while
ignoring the exact time). The weekday interpretation is following:
0 means Sunday, 1 means Monday, ..., 6 means Saturday; the special value 7
means each 7 days, irrespectively of weekday. Defaults to 0 if the
weekday argument is omitted.
- monthly
- Log files are rotated the first time logrotate is
run in a month (this is normally on the first day of the month).
- yearly
- Log files are rotated if the current year is not the same
as the last rotation.
-
size size
- Log files are rotated only if they grow bigger than
size bytes. If size is followed by k, the size is
assumed to be in kilobytes. If M is used, the size is in megabytes,
and if G is used, the size is in gigabytes. So size 100,
size 100k, size 100M and size 100G are all valid.
This option is mutually exclusive with the time interval options, and it
causes log files to be rotated without regard for the last rotation time,
if specified after the time criteria (the last specified option takes the
precedence).
- missingok
- If the log file is missing, go on to the next one without
issuing an error message. See also nomissingok.
- nomissingok
- If a log file does not exist, issue an error. This is the
default.
- ignoreduplicates
- Ignore any following matches of a log file.
- ifempty
- Rotate the log file even if it is empty, overriding the
notifempty option ( ifempty is the default).
- notifempty
- Do not rotate the log if it is empty (this overrides the
ifempty option).
-
minage count
- Do not rotate logs which are less than <count> days
old.
-
maxage count
- Remove rotated logs older than <count> days. The age
is only checked if the logfile is to be rotated. rotate -1 does not
hinder removal. The files are mailed to the configured address if
maillast and mail are configured.
-
minsize size
- Log files are rotated when they grow bigger than
size bytes, but not before the additionally specified time interval
( daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly). The
related size option is similar except that it is mutually exclusive
with the time interval options, and it causes log files to be rotated
without regard for the last rotation time, if specified after the time
criteria (the last specified option takes the precedence). When
minsize is used, both the size and timestamp of a log file are
considered.
-
maxsize size
- Log files are rotated when they grow bigger than
size bytes even before the additionally specified time interval (
daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly). The
related size option is similar except that it is mutually exclusive
with the time interval options, and it causes log files to be rotated
without regard for the last rotation time, if specified after the time
criteria (the last specified option takes the precedence). When
maxsize is used, both the size and timestamp of a log file are
considered.
-
tabooext [+] list
- The current taboo extension list is changed (see the
include directive for information on the taboo extensions). If a +
precedes the list of extensions, the current taboo extension list is
augmented, otherwise it is replaced. At startup, the taboo extension list
,v, .cfsaved, .disabled, .dpkg-bak,
.dpkg-del, .dpkg-dist, .dpkg-new, .dpkg-old,
.rhn-cfg-tmp-*, .rpmnew, .rpmorig, .rpmsave,
.swp, .ucf-dist, .ucf-new, .ucf-old, ~
-
taboopat [+] list
- The current taboo glob pattern list is changed (see the
include directive for information on the taboo extensions and
patterns). If a + precedes the list of patterns, the current taboo pattern
list is augmented, otherwise it is replaced. At startup, the taboo pattern
list is empty.
-
create mode owner group,
create owner group
- Immediately after rotation (before the postrotate
script is run) the log file is created (with the same name as the log file
just rotated). mode specifies the mode for the log file in octal
(the same as chmod(2)), owner specifies the user who will
own the log file, and group specifies the group the log file will
belong to (see the section USER AND GROUP for details). Any of the
log file attributes may be omitted, in which case those attributes for the
new file will use the same values as the original log file for the omitted
attributes. This option can be disabled using the nocreate option.
- nocreate
- New log files are not created (this overrides the
create option).
-
createolddir mode owner
group
- If the directory specified by olddir directive does
not exist, it is created. mode specifies the mode for the
olddir directory in octal (the same as chmod(2)),
owner specifies the user who will own the olddir directory,
and group specifies the group the olddir directory will
belong to (see the section USER AND GROUP for details).
This option can be disabled using the nocreateolddir option.
- nocreateolddir
-
olddir directory is not created by logrotate
when it does not exist.
- copy
- Make a copy of the log file, but don't change the original
at all. This option can be used, for instance, to make a snapshot of the
current log file, or when some other utility needs to truncate or parse
the file. When this option is used, the create option will have no
effect, as the old log file stays in place. The copy option allows
storing rotated log files on the different devices using olddir
directive.
- nocopy
- Do not copy the original log file and leave it in place.
(this overrides the copy option).
- copytruncate
- Truncate the original log file to zero size in place after
creating a copy, instead of moving the old log file and optionally
creating a new one. It can be used when some program cannot be told to
close its logfile and thus might continue writing (appending) to the
previous log file forever. Note that there is a very small time slice
between copying the file and truncating it, so some logging data might be
lost. When this option is used, the create option will have no
effect, as the old log file stays in place. The copytruncate option
allows storing rotated log files on the different devices using
olddir directive. The copytruncate option implies
norenamecopy.
- nocopytruncate
- Do not truncate the original log file in place after
creating a copy (this overrides the copytruncate option).
- renamecopy
- Log file is renamed to temporary filename in the same
directory by adding ".tmp" extension to it. After that,
postrotate script is run and log file is copied from temporary
filename to final filename. In the end, temporary filename is removed. The
renamecopy option allows storing rotated log files on the different
devices using olddir directive. The renamecopy option
implies nocopytruncate.
- norenamecopy
- Do not rename and copy the original log file (this
overrides the renamecopy option).
- shred
- Delete log files using shred -u instead of unlink().
This should ensure that logs are not readable after their scheduled
deletion; this is off by default. See also noshred.
- noshred
- Do not use shred when deleting old log files. See
also shred.
-
shredcycles count
- Asks GNU shred(1) to overwrite log files
count times before deletion. Without this option, shred's
default will be used.
- allowhardlink
- Rotate files with multiple hard links; this is off by
default. The target file might get emptied, e.g. with shred or
copytruncate. Use with caution, especially when the log files are
rotated as root.
- noallowhardlink
- Do not rotate files with multiple hard links. See also
allowhardlink.
- compress
- Old versions of log files are compressed with
gzip(1) by default. See also nocompress.
- nocompress
- Old versions of log files are not compressed. See also
compress.
- compresscmd
- Specifies which command to use to compress log files. The
default is gzip(1). See also compress.
- uncompresscmd
- Specifies which command to use to uncompress log files. The
default is gunzip(1).
- compressext
- Specifies which extension to use on compressed logfiles, if
compression is enabled. The default follows that of the configured
compression command.
- compressoptions
- Command line options may be passed to the compression
program, if one is in use. The default, for gzip(1), is
"-6" (biased towards high compression at the expense of speed).
If you use a different compression command, you may need to change the
compressoptions to match.
- delaycompress
- Postpone compression of the previous log file to the next
rotation cycle. This only has effect when used in combination with
compress. It can be used when some program cannot be told to close
its logfile and thus might continue writing to the previous log file for
some time.
- nodelaycompress
- Do not postpone compression of the previous log file to the
next rotation cycle (this overrides the delaycompress option).
-
extension ext
- Log files with ext extension can keep it after the
rotation. If compression is used, the compression extension (normally
.gz) appears after ext. For example you have a logfile named
mylog.foo and want to rotate it to mylog.1.foo.gz instead of
mylog.foo.1.gz.
-
addextension ext
- Log files are given the final extension ext after
rotation. If the original file already ends with ext, the extension
is not duplicated, but merely moved to the end, that is both
filename and filenameext would get rotated to
filename.1 ext. If compression is used, the compression extension
(normally .gz) appears after ext.
-
start count
- This is the number to use as the base for rotation. For
example, if you specify 0, the logs will be created with a .0 extension as
they are rotated from the original log files. If you specify 9, log files
will be created with a .9, skipping 0–8. Files will still be
rotated the number of times specified with the rotate directive.
- dateext
- Archive old versions of log files adding a date extension
like YYYYMMDD instead of simply adding a number. The extension may be
configured using the dateformat and dateyesterday options.
- nodateext
- Do not archive old versions of log files with date
extension (this overrides the dateext option).
-
dateformat format_string
- Specify the extension for dateext using the notation
similar to strftime(3) function. Only %Y %m %d %H %M %S %V and %s
specifiers are allowed. The default value is -%Y%m%d except hourly, which
uses -%Y%m%d%H as default value. Note that also the character separating
log name from the extension is part of the dateformat string. The system
clock must be set past Sep 9th 2001 for %s to work correctly. Note that
the datestamps generated by this format must be lexically sortable (that
is first the year, then the month then the day. For example 2001/12/01 is
ok, but 01/12/2001 is not, since 01/11/2002 would sort lower while it is
later). This is because when using the rotate option,
logrotate sorts all rotated filenames to find out which logfiles
are older and should be removed.
- dateyesterday
- Use yesterday's instead of today's date to create the
dateext extension, so that the rotated log file has a date in its
name that is the same as the timestamps within it.
- datehourago
- Use hour ago instead of current date to create the
dateext extension, so that the rotated log file has a hour in its
name that is the same as the timestamps within it. Useful with rotate
hourly.
-
mail address
- When a log is rotated out of existence, it is mailed to
address. If no mail should be generated by a particular log, the
nomail directive may be used.
- nomail
- Do not mail old log files to any address.
- mailfirst
- When using the mail command, mail the just-rotated
file, instead of the about-to-expire file.
- maillast
- When using the mail command, mail the
about-to-expire file, instead of the just-rotated file (this is the
default).
-
include file_or_directory
- Reads the file given as an argument as if it was included
inline where the include directive appears. If a directory is
given, most of the files in that directory are read in alphabetic order
before processing of the including file continues. The only files which
are ignored are files which are not regular files (such as directories and
named pipes) and files whose names end with one of the taboo extensions or
patterns, as specified by the tabooext or taboopat
directives, respectively. The given path may start with ~/ to make
it relative to the home directory of the executing user. For security
reasons configuration files must not be group-writable nor world-writable.
- sharedscripts
- Normally, prerotate and postrotate scripts
are run for each log which is rotated and the absolute path to the log
file is passed as first argument to the script. That means a single script
may be run multiple times for log file entries which match multiple files
(such as the /var/log/news/* example). If sharedscripts is
specified, the scripts are only run once, no matter how many logs match
the wildcarded pattern, and whole pattern is passed to them. However, if
none of the logs in the pattern require rotating, the scripts will not be
run at all. If the scripts exit with error (or any log fails to rotate),
the remaining actions will not be executed for any logs. This option
overrides the nosharedscripts option.
- nosharedscripts
- Run prerotate and postrotate scripts for
every log file which is rotated (this is the default, and overrides the
sharedscripts option). The absolute path to the log file is passed
as first argument to the script. The absolute path to the final rotated
log file is passed as the second argument to the postrotate script.
If the scripts exit with error, the remaining actions will not be executed
for the affected log only.
- firstaction
-
- script
-
- endscript
- The script is executed once before all log files
that match the wildcarded pattern are rotated, before the prerotate script
is run and only if at least one log will actually be rotated. These
directives may only appear inside a log file definition. The whole pattern
is passed to the script as its first argument. If the script exits with an
error, no further processing is done. See also lastaction and the
SCRIPTS section.
- lastaction
-
- script
-
- endscript
- The script is executed once after all log files that
match the wildcarded pattern are rotated, after the postrotate script is
run and only if at least one log is rotated. These directives may only
appear inside a log file definition. The whole pattern is passed to the
script as its first argument. If the script exits with an error, just an
error message is shown (as this is the last action). See also
firstaction and the SCRIPTS section.
- prerotate
-
- script
-
- endscript
- The script is executed before the log file is
rotated and only if the log will actually be rotated. These directives may
only appear inside a log file definition. Normally, the absolute path to
the log file is passed as the first argument to the script. If
sharedscripts is specified, the whole pattern is passed to the
script. See also postrotate and the SCRIPTS section. See
sharedscripts and nosharedscripts for error handling.
- postrotate
-
- script
-
- endscript
- The script is executed after the log file is
rotated. These directives may only appear inside a log file definition.
Normally, the absolute path to the log file is passed as the first
argument to the script and the absolute path to the final rotated log file
is passed as the second argument to the script. If sharedscripts is
specified, the whole pattern is passed as the first argument to the
script, and the second argument is omitted. See also prerotate and
the SCRIPTS section. See sharedscripts and
nosharedscripts for error handling.
- preremove
-
- script
-
- endscript
- The script is executed once just before removal of a
log file. logrotate will pass the name of file which is soon to be
removed as the first argument to the script. See also firstaction
and the SCRIPTS section.
The lines between the starting keyword (e.g.
prerotate) and
endscript (both of which must appear on lines by themselves) are
executed (using
/bin/sh). The script inherits some traits from the
logrotate process, including stderr, stdout, the current directory, the
environment, and the umask. Scripts are run as the invoking user and group,
irrespective of any
su directive. If the
--log flag was
specified, file descriptor 3 is the log file. The current working directory is
unspecified.
User and group identifiers are resolved first by trying the textual
representation and, in case it fails, afterwards by the numeric value.
/var/lib/logrotate/status |
Default state file. |
|
/etc/logrotate.conf |
Configuration options. |
|
chmod(2),
gunzip(1),
gzip(1),
mail(1),
shred(1),
strftime(3),
strtoul(3),
<
https://github.com/logrotate/logrotate>
Erik Troan, Preston Brown, Jan Kaluza.
<https://github.com/logrotate/logrotate>