rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs
rotatelogs [ -l ] [ -L linkname
] [ -p program ] [ -f ] [ -D ] [ -t ] [
-v ] [ -e ] [ -c ] [ -n number-of-files ]
logfile rotationtime|filesize(B|K|M|G) [ offset
]
rotatelogs is a simple program for use in conjunction with
Apache's piped logfile feature. It supports rotation based on a time
interval or maximum size of the log.
- -l
- Causes the use of local time rather than GMT as the base for the interval
or for strftime(3) formatting with size-based rotation.
- -L linkname
- Causes a hard link to be made from the current logfile to the specified
link name. This can be used to watch the log continuously across rotations
using a command like tail -F linkname.
- -p program
- If given, rotatelogs will execute the specified program every time
a new log file is opened. The filename of the newly opened file is passed
as the first argument to the program. If executing after a rotation, the
old log file is passed as the second argument. rotatelogs does not
wait for the specified program to terminate before continuing to operate,
and will not log any error code returned on termination. The spawned
program uses the same stdin, stdout, and stderr as rotatelogs itself, and
also inherits the environment.
- -f
- Causes the logfile to be opened immediately, as soon as rotatelogs
starts, instead of waiting for the first logfile entry to be read (for
non-busy sites, there may be a substantial delay between when the server
is started and when the first request is handled, meaning that the
associated logfile does not "exist" until then, which causes
problems from some automated logging tools)
- -D
- Creates the parent directories of the path that the log file will be
placed in if they do not already exist. This allows strftime(3)
formatting to be used in the path and not just the filename.
- -t
- Causes the logfile to be truncated instead of rotated. This is useful when
a log is processed in real time by a command like tail, and there is no
need for archived data. No suffix will be added to the filename, however
format strings containing '%' characters will be respected.
- -v
- Produce verbose output on STDERR. The output contains the result of the
configuration parsing, and all file open and close actions.
- -e
- Echo logs through to stdout. Useful when logs need to be further processed
in real time by a further tool in the chain.
- -c
- Create log file for each interval, even if empty.
- -n
number-of-files
- Use a circular list of filenames without timestamps. With -n 3, the series
of log files opened would be "logfile", "logfile.1",
"logfile.2", then overwriting "logfile". Available in
2.4.5 and later.
- logfile
- rotationtime
- The time between log file rotations in seconds. The rotation occurs at the
beginning of this interval. For example, if the rotation time is 3600, the
log file will be rotated at the beginning of every hour; if the rotation
time is 86400, the log file will be rotated every night at midnight. (If
no data is logged during an interval, no file will be created.)
- filesize(B|K|M|G)
- The maximum file size in followed by exactly one of the letters B
(Bytes), K (KBytes), M (MBytes) or G (GBytes). .PP
When time and size are specified, the size must be given after the time.
Rotation will occur whenever either time or size limits are reached.
- offset
- The number of minutes offset from UTC. If omitted, zero is assumed and UTC
is used. For example, to use local time in the zone UTC -5 hours, specify
a value of -300 for this argument. In most cases, -l should
be used instead of specifying an offset.
CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/logfile 86400" common
This creates the files /var/log/logfile.nnnn where nnnn is the
system time at which the log nominally starts (this time will always be a
multiple of the rotation time, so you can synchronize cron scripts with it).
At the end of each rotation time (here after 24 hours) a new log is
started.
CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -l /var/log/logfile.%Y.%m.%d 86400" common
This creates the files /var/log/logfile.yyyy.mm.dd where yyyy is
the year, mm is the month, and dd is the day of the month. Logging will
switch to a new file every day at midnight, local time.
CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/logfile 5M" common
This configuration will rotate the logfile whenever it reaches a
size of 5 megabytes.
ErrorLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/errorlog.%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M_%S 5M"
This configuration will rotate the error logfile whenever it
reaches a size of 5 megabytes, and the suffix to the logfile name will be
created of the form errorlog.YYYY-mm-dd-HH_MM_SS.
CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -t /var/log/logfile 86400" common
This creates the file /var/log/logfile, truncating the file at
startup and then truncating the file once per day. It is expected in this
scenario that a separate process (such as tail) would process the file in
real time.
The following logfile format string substitutions should be
supported by all strftime(3) implementations, see the
strftime(3) man page for library-specific extensions.
- • %A - full weekday name (localized)
-
- • %a - 3-character weekday name (localized)
-
- • %B - full month name (localized)
-
- • %b - 3-character month name (localized)
-
- • %c - date and time (localized)
-
- • %d - 2-digit day of month
-
- • %H - 2-digit hour (24 hour clock)
-
- • %I - 2-digit hour (12 hour clock)
-
- • %j - 3-digit day of year
-
- • %M - 2-digit minute
-
- • %m - 2-digit month
-
- • %p - am/pm of 12 hour clock (localized)
-
- • %S - 2-digit second
-
- • %U - 2-digit week of year (Sunday first day of week)
-
- • %W - 2-digit week of year (Monday first day of week)
-
- • %w - 1-digit weekday (Sunday first day of week)
-
- • %X - time (localized)
-
- • %x - date (localized)
-
- • %Y - 4-digit year
-
- • %y - 2-digit year
-
- • %Z - time zone name
-
- • %% - literal `%'
-