Why we use logrotate ?

shipon_97 · 01-08-2008, 09:54 AM

Dear friends ,

I cannot understand how to use logrotate feature in Linux to read the 'man' file . Plz give me a sample example about it and tell me why it is necessary to use it ?

Emerson · 01-08-2008, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shipon_97

Why we use logrotate ?

I cannot understand how to use logrotate feature in Linux to read the 'man' file .

Do we?

author_unknown · 01-08-2008, 10:05 AM

logrotate performs log rotation and Logrotation is important because the log files that represent the action of 'syslog rules' can grow to a large size very quickly. Logrotate is often installed by default on your linux system, which rotates the logs based on certain criteria. The criteria can be based on size or frequency. Frequency, in turn, can be tied to daily,weekly and so on. Logrotation is performed automatically by the system.

If u want to see how logrotate actually works, then take a gud look at /etc/logrotate.conf file......

Actually depending on the frequency(daily, weekly, hourly or so), the log files keep on rotating. for example if logrotation is set to be done weekly then after 1 week, the picture would be.........

boot.log -> boot.log.1 -> boot.log.2 -> boot.log.3 -> boot.log.4 -> wiped from the disk

where boot.log is a log file.

trickykid · 01-08-2008, 10:27 AM

man logrotate

odcheck · 01-09-2008, 09:15 AM

Can anybody give me a hint on how to setup a logrotate for fetchmail?

Code:

/var/log/fetchmail {     In my case this would be /var/log/fetchmaillog
    weekly
    rotate 5
    compress
    missingok
    notifempty
    create 640 fetchmail root    Again in my case this would be create 600 fetchmaillog root
    sharedscripts
    postrotate
        if [ -f /var/run/fetchmail/fetchmail.pid ]; then \  again in my case ist would be /var/run/fetchmail.pid
            if [ -x /usr/sbin/invoke-rc.d ]; then \
                invoke-rc.d fetchmail restart > /dev/null; \
            else \
                /etc/init.d/fetchmail restart > /dev/null; \
            fi; \
        fi;
    endscript
}

So this

Code:

invoke-rc.d

is from a debian system. But I am running CentOS 5.1 x86 i386.
I guess that after this

Code:

if

the script performs a restart of fetchmail so.
Can I just apply this to me needs like if.... instead of /usr/sbin/invoke-rc.d to write /usr/bin fetchmail and so on ...
Another thing is that my mails get catched by a cron job like this

Code:

/usr/bin/fetchmail -v -k -L /var/log/fetchmaillog -f '/root/.fetchmailrc' >/dev/null 2>&1

the

Code:

>/dev/null...

is only cause I don't want to have always a mail sent to root afterwards.
So if I would rewrite the script above and then if a pid exists etc.. and I start /usr/bin/fetchmail I guess I will have to attach all those -v -k -L as well ?