how to clear /varlog/messages ?

markraem · 12-08-2007, 02:34 PM

Hello,

What do I have to do when I want to clear the /var/log/messages file in linux ?

Is it safe to simply remove it and then touch it again ?

Thanks in advance

gilead · 12-08-2007, 02:43 PM

I use logrotate for this - as far as I know it's available with most distros. You can configure it to rotate logs based on age or size as choose many versions to keep.

I haven't tried it but I'd expect that if you removed it and touched it, you'd have to restart syslogd

anomie · 12-08-2007, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gilead

I haven't tried it but I'd expect that if you removed it and touched it, you'd have to restart syslogd

That's affirmative. e.g. On my CentOS 5 box, the logrotate 'postrotate' directive that handles /var/log/messages does exactly that.