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Why is logrotate used?
The logrotate program is used to provide the administrator with an up-to-date record of events taking place on the system. The logrotate utility may also be used to back up log files, so copies may be used to establish patterns for system use.
How do I make sure logrotate is running?
To verify if a particular log is indeed rotating or not and to check the last date and time of its rotation, check the /var/lib/logrotate/status file. This is a neatly formatted file that contains the log file name and the date on which it was last rotated.
How does logrotate daily work?
Each file has one line, which is the date on which it was last rotated; if you run logrotate on such a date that a given file is due for rotation, given the number of days between current date and the date in the file (1 for daily, 7 for weekly, etc.), the file will be rotated.
How does log rotation work with logrotate on Linux?
Let’s dive into some of the details. Log rotation on Linux systems is more complicated than you might expect. Which log files are rotated, when and how often, whether or not the rotated log files are compressed, and how many instances of the log files are retained all depend on settings in configuration files.
How often should I run the postrotate script in logrotate?
Normally logrotate runs the postrotate script every time it rotates a log. This is also true for multiple logs that use the same configuration block. For example, a web server configuration block that refers to both the access log and the error log will, if it rotates both, run the postrotate script twice (once for each file rotated).
Where does logrotate read a syslog configuration file?
Usually the directory contains a configuration file for your syslog service, which logrotate reads when it rotates the system logs. This file contains an entry for various system logs, along with some commands similar to those contained in logrotate.conf.
Why is it important to rotate log files?
Rotating log files is important for several reasons. First, you probably don’t want older log files eating up too much of your disk space. Second, when you need to analyze log data, you probably don’t want those log files to be extremely large and cumbersome.