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rotatelogs(8)                     rotatelogs                     rotatelogs(8)




NAME

       rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs



SYNOPSIS

       rotatelogs [ -l ] [ -L linkname ] [ -p program ] [ -f ] [ -v ] [ -e ] [
       -c ] [ -n number-of-files ]  logfile  rotationtime|filesize(B|K|M|G)  [
       offset ]




SUMMARY

       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.




OPTIONS

       -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  continu-
              ously 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 execut-
              ing 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 rotatel-
              ogs 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)

       -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".

       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.



EXAMPLES

            CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/logs/logfile 86400" common



       This creates the files /var/logs/logfile.nnnn where nnnn is the  system
       time at which the log nominally starts (this time will always be a mul-
       tiple 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/logs/logfile.%Y.%m.%d 86400" common



       This creates the files /var/logs/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/logs/logfile 5M" common



       This configuration will rotate the logfile whenever it reaches  a  size
       of 5 megabytes.


            ErrorLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/logs/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/logs/logfile 86400" common



       This creates the file /var/logs/logfile, truncating the file at startup
       and then truncating the file once per day. It is expected in this  sce-
       nario  that a separate process (such as tail) would process the file in
       real time.



PORTABILITY

       The following logfile format string substitutions should  be  supported
       by  all  strftime(3)  implementations, see the strftime(3) man page for
       library-specific extensions.


       o %A - full weekday name (localized)


       o %a - 3-character weekday name (localized)


       o %B - full month name (localized)


       o %b - 3-character month name (localized)


       o %c - date and time (localized)


       o %d - 2-digit day of month


       o %H - 2-digit hour (24 hour clock)


       o %I - 2-digit hour (12 hour clock)


       o %j - 3-digit day of year


       o %M - 2-digit minute


       o %m - 2-digit month


       o %p - am/pm of 12 hour clock (localized)


       o %S - 2-digit second


       o %U - 2-digit week of year (Sunday first day of week)


       o %W - 2-digit week of year (Monday first day of week)


       o %w - 1-digit weekday (Sunday first day of week)


       o %X - time (localized)


       o %x - date (localized)


       o %Y - 4-digit year


       o %y - 2-digit year


       o %Z - time zone name


       o %% - literal `%'




Apache HTTP Server                2013-06-13                     rotatelogs(8)

httpd 2.4.6 - Generated Sun Aug 25 10:34:23 CDT 2013
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