logrotate manually

SPEEDEX · 04-08-2009, 03:18 PM

Hi,
I have a CentOS 5 , I wanted to rotate the current system log files manually and download them for trouble shooting , so I went to /etc/logrotate.d and executed this command "logrotate syslog" , but when I went to /var/log directory , there was no messages.1 file ! the messages file was new , but seems messages.1 file is deleted ! is it normal ?
what is the proper way to rotate logs ?
Regards

Berhanie · 04-08-2009, 03:45 PM

if you want to force a rotatation which is uncalled for in the config files, you need to give it a "-f":

Code:

logrotate -f /path/to/some/logrotate.conf

anomie · 04-08-2009, 03:47 PM

Barging in for a comment: I could have used that -- last week.

SPEEDEX · 04-08-2009, 03:56 PM

Thank you , but the problem is that rotation has been done , but the file was missing ! there was messages and messages.2 file , but there was no messages.1 !

Berhanie · 04-08-2009, 04:20 PM

@speedex: could it be because you don't have a create option in your config file?
@anomie: it'll be good for next time, then.

rweaver · 04-08-2009, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SPEEDEX

Hi,
I have a CentOS 5 , I wanted to rotate the current system log files manually and download them for trouble shooting , so I went to /etc/logrotate.d and executed this command "logrotate syslog" , but when I went to /var/log directory , there was no messages.1 file ! the messages file was new , but seems messages.1 file is deleted ! is it normal ?
what is the proper way to rotate logs ?
Regards

I've observed this issue with logrotate in the past, I'm not sure there is a solution. Anytime I use -f /path/to/conf/filename.conf it ends up wiping a log. I filed a bug report on the behavior at one point.

skles · 07-19-2010, 01:38 AM

If you use

logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.conf

then you will find messages.1

I don't know why.

trickykid · 07-19-2010, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rweaver

I've observed this issue with logrotate in the past, I'm not sure there is a solution. Anytime I use -f /path/to/conf/filename.conf it ends up wiping a log. I filed a bug report on the behavior at one point.

Could it be that it's wiping one because you have it set to only keep so many copies? default is usually 4 at most. Change your conf to keep longer retention on rotated logs.