Can I delete all logs in /var/log? HURRY!

Tenover · 01-03-2006, 11:29 AM

My /var partition is at 100%! I have tons of logs that are taking up tons of space...Can I simply delete them, and will they just be recreated as needed by whatever application needs them (cron, backup, etc...?)? Thanks.

vasudevadas · 01-03-2006, 12:16 PM

I don't see why you shouldn't delete anything you like.

Linc · 01-03-2006, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tenover

My /var partition is at 100%! I have tons of logs that are taking up tons of space...Can I simply delete them, and will they just be recreated as needed by whatever application needs them (cron, backup, etc...?)? Thanks.

as root:
for file in /var/log; do > $file; done

This will truncate them for you.

haertig · 01-03-2006, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tenover

My /var partition is at 100%! I have tons of logs that are taking up tons of space...Can I simply delete them, and will they just be recreated as needed by whatever application needs them (cron, backup, etc...?)? Thanks.

It's safe to delete all the old logs that probably end in .gz or maybe .bz2 I'd hang on to the current logs unless you're really that tight on space.

Depending on your distribution, you may have a bunch of mostly useless stuff under /var. apt-get from Debian stores stuff there (that can easily be recreated). Under Debian, run "apt-get clean" to free up some space under /var. I imagine any distro that uses apt-get uses /var for the temp storage, but that's just a guess.

nouse66 · 01-03-2006, 01:09 PM

and as soon as your get your /var partition cleaned up you should look into using logrotate to keep those log files under control