logrotate ‐ rotates, compresses, and mails system logs at Linux.org

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LOGROTATE(8) System Administrator's Manual LOGROTATE(8)

NAME
logrotate ‐ rotates, compresses, and mails system logs

SYNOPSIS
logrotate [-dv] [-f|--force] [-s|--state file] config_file ..

DESCRIPTION
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 multiple times in one day unless the
criterion for that log is based on the log's size and logrotate is being run multiple times 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 sin‐
gle 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.

OPTIONS
-?, --help
Prints help message.

-d, --debug
Turns on debug mode and implies -v. In debug mode, no changes will be made to the logs or to the
logrotate state file.

-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.

-m, --mail <command>
Tells logrotate which command to use when mailing logs. This command should accept two arguments: 1)
the subject of the message, and 2) the recipient. The command must then read a message on standard
input and mail it to the recipient. The default mail command is /bin/mail -s.

-s, --state <statefile>
Tells logrotate to use an alternate state file. This is useful if logrotate is being run as a differ‐
ent user for various sets of log files. The default state file is /var/lib/logrotate.status.

--usage
Prints a short usage message.

/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
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
#.

The next section of the config files defined 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 /sbin/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. They
are rotated whenever it grows over 100k 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 the double quotes around the first filename at the beginning of this section allows
logrotate to rotate logs with spaces in the name. Normal shell quoting rules apply, with ', ", and \ charac‐
ters supported.

The next section defines the parameters for all of the files in /var/log/news. Each file is rotated on a
monthly basis. This is considered a single rotation directive and if errors occur for more than one file, the
log files are not compressed.

compresscmd
Specifies which command to use to compress log files. The default is gzip. See also compress.

uncompresscmd
Specifies which command to use to uncompress log files. The default is gunzip.

compressext
Specifies which extension to use on compressed logfiles, if compression is enabled. The default fol‐
lows 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.

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.

copytruncate
Truncate the original log file 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.

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 name who will own the log file, and group specifies the group the
log file will belong to. 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.

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 name who will own
the olddir directory, and group specifies the group the olddir directory will belong to. This option
can be disabled using the nocreateolddir option.

daily Log files are rotated every day.

month then the day. e.g., 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 file‐
names 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.

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 log‐
file and thus might continue writing to the previous log file for some time.

extension ext
Log files with ext extension can keep it after the rotation. If compression is used, the compres‐
sion 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.

hourly Log files are rotated every hour. Note that usually logrotate is configured to be run by cron daily.
You have to change this configuration and run logrotate hourly to be able to really rotate logs hourly.

ifempty
Rotate the log file even if it is empty, overriding the notifempty option (ifempty 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 pro‐
cessing of the including file continues. The only files which are ignored are files which are not regu‐
lar files (such as directories and named pipes) and files whose names end with one of the taboo exten‐
sions, as specified by the tabooext directive.

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.

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).

maxage count
Remove rotated logs older than <count> days. The age is only checked if the logfile is to be rotated.
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. When minsize is used, both the size and timestamp of a log file are
considered.

missingok
If the log file is missing, go on to the next one without issuing an error message. See also nomissin‐
gok.

monthly
Log files are rotated the first time logrotate is run in a month (this is normally on the first day of
the month).

nocompress
Old versions of log files are not compressed. See also compress.

nocopy Do not copy the original log file and leave it in place. (this overrides the copy option).

nocopytruncate
Do not truncate the original log file in place after creating a copy (this overrides the copytruncate
option).

nocreate
New log files are not created (this overrides the create option).

nocreateolddir
olddir directory is not created by logrotate when it does not exist.

nodelaycompress
Do not postpone compression of the previous log file to the next rotation cycle (this overrides the
delaycompress option).

nodateext
Do not archive old versions of log files with date extension (this overrides the dateext option).

nomail Don't mail old log files to any address.

nomissingok
If a log file does not exist, issue an error. This is the default.

noolddir

notifempty
Do not rotate the log if it is empty (this overrides the ifempty option).

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 overrid‐
den by the noolddir option.

postrotate/endscript
The lines between postrotate and endscript (both of which must appear on lines by themselves) are exe‐
cuted (using /bin/sh) 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 first argument to the script. If
sharedscripts is specified, whole pattern is passed to the script. See also prerotate. See shared‐
scripts and nosharedscripts for error handling.

prerotate/endscript
The lines between prerotate and endscript (both of which must appear on lines by themselves) are exe‐
cuted (using /bin/sh) 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 first argument to the script. If sharedscripts is specified, whole pattern is
passed to the script. See also postrotate. See sharedscripts and nosharedscripts for error handling.

firstaction/endscript
The lines between firstaction and endscript (both of which must appear on lines by themselves) are exe‐
cuted (using /bin/sh) once before all log files that match the wildcarded pattern are rotated, before
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. Whole pattern is passed to the script as first argument. If
the script exits with error, no further processing is done. See also lastaction.

lastaction/endscript
The lines between lastaction and endscript (both of which must appear on lines by themselves) are exe‐
cuted (using /bin/sh) once after all log files that match the wildcarded pattern are rotated, after
postrotate script is run and only if at least one log is rotated. These directives may only appear
inside a log file definition. Whole pattern is passed to the script as first argument. If the script
exits with error, just an error message is shown (as this is the last action). See also firstaction.

preremove/endscript
The lines between preremove and endscript (both of which must appear on lines by themselves) are exe‐
cuted (using /bin/sh) once just before removal of a log file. The logrotate will pass the name of file
which is soon to be removed. See also firstaction.

rotate count
Log files are rotated count times before being removed or mailed to the address specified in a mail
ple 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, the remaining actions
will not be executed for any logs. This option overrides the nosharedscripts option and implies create
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.

shredcycles count
Asks GNU shred(1) to overwrite log files count times before deletion. Without this option, shred's
default will be used.

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 speci‐
fied with the rotate directive.

su user group
Rotate log files set under this user and group instead of using default user/group (usually root). user
specifies the user name used for rotation and group specifies the group used for rotation.

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 contains .rpmsave, .rpmorig, ~, .dis‐
abled, .dpkg-old, .dpkg-dist, .dpkg-new, .cfsaved, .ucf-old, .ucf-dist, .ucf-new, .rpmnew, .swp,
.cfsaved, .rhn-cfg-tmp-*

weekly Log files are rotated if the current weekday is less than the weekday of the last rotation or if more
than a week has passed since the last rotation. This is normally the same as rotating logs on the first
day of the week, but it works better if logrotate is not run every night.

yearly Log files are rotated if the current year is not the same as the last rotation.

FILES
/var/lib/logrotate.status Default state file.
/etc/logrotate.conf Configuration options.