| NEWSYSLOG(8) | System Manager's Manual | NEWSYSLOG(8) |
newsyslog,
newsyslog.conf — rotate log
files
newsyslog |
[-Fmnrv] [-a
directory] [-f
config_file] [log ...] |
The newsyslog utility rotates log files
when they exceed a configurable size or age. The log
file is renamed to log.0 and an empty file is
created in its place. An archive of older logs may be kept: in order of
increasing age, these files are named log.1,
log.2, and so on. When their number exceeds a given
limit, the oldest is removed. The archived logs may also be compressed.
The options are as follows:
-a
directory-a option was not specified.-Fnewsyslog to trim logs regardless of the
size and/or age requirements specified in
/etc/newsyslog.conf. This option may be combined
with the -n or -v flags to
aid in debugging problems with
/etc/newsyslog.conf.-f
config_file-mnewsyslog was run with the
-m flag is mailed to the user listed in the
monitor notification section.-n-rnewsyslog must be
running as root. Note that in this mode newsyslog
will not be able to send a SIGHUP signal to
syslogd(8).-vnewsyslog in verbose mode. In this mode it
will print out each log and its reasons for either trimming that log or
skipping it.In the default system configuration,
newsyslog is run by
cron(8), but it may also be run
manually. If one or more log files are specified on
the command line, only the specified files are rotated. Note that each
log specified must have an entry in
/etc/newsyslog.conf.
A log can be archived because of two reasons: The log file can
have grown bigger than a preset size in kilobytes, or a preset number of
hours may have elapsed since the last log archive. The granularity of
newsyslog is dependent on how often it is scheduled
to run in cron(8). Since the
program is quite fast, it may be scheduled to run every hour without any ill
effects.
When starting up, newsyslog reads in a
configuration file to determine which logs should be looked at. By default,
this configuration file is /etc/newsyslog.conf. Each
line of the file contains information about a particular log file that
should be handled by newsyslog. Each line has five
mandatory fields and up to three optional fields, with whitespace separating
each field. Blank lines or lines beginning with a hash mark
(‘#’) are ignored. The fields of the
configuration file are as follows:
:’ is essential, even if the
owner or group field is left
blank. The fields may be numeric, or a name which is looked up in the
system password and group databases. For backwards compatibility, a
‘.’ may be used instead of a
‘:’. If either
owner or group is not
specified, the owner and/or group of the existing log file is used.*’, or set to
‘0’, then the size of the log file
is not taken into account when determining when to trim the log file. By
default, files smaller than 256 bytes are not rotated unless the
‘B’ (binary) flag is set or the -F
option is specified. This prevents newsyslog from
rotating files consisting solely of a message indicating that the log file
has been turned over.*’), log rotation
will depend only on the contents of the size field.
Otherwise, the when field consists of an optional
interval in hours, possibly followed by an
‘@’-sign and a time in a restricted
ISO 8601 format or by a
‘$’-sign and a time specification
for logfile rotation at a fixed time once per day, per week or per month.
If a time is specified, the log file will only be trimmed if
newsyslog is run within one hour of the
specified time. If an interval is specified, the log file will be
trimmed if that many hours have passed since the last rotation. When
both a time and an interval are specified, both conditions must be
satisfied for the rotation to take place.
There is no provision for the specification of a time zone. There is little point in specifying an explicit minutes or seconds component in the current implementation, since the only comparison is ‘within the hour’.
ISO
8601 restricted time format: The lead-in character for a
restricted ISO 8601 time is an
‘@’-sign. The particular format of
the time in restricted ISO 8601 is:
[[[[[cc]yy]mm]dd][T[HH[MM[SS]]]]].
Optional date fields default to the appropriate component of the current
date; optional time fields default to midnight. For example, if today is
January 22, 1999, the following date specifications are all
equivalent:
19990122T000000’990122T000000’0122T000000’22T000000’T000000’T0000’T00’22T’T’Day,
week and month time format: The lead-in character for day, week
and month specification is a dollar sign ($). The particular format of
day, week and month specification is:
[DHH],
[Ww[DHH]],
and
[Mdd[DHH]],
respectively. Optional time fields default to midnight. The ranges for
day and hour specifications are:
$D0@T00)$D23@T23)$W0D23$W5D16$M1D0@01T00)$M5D6@05T06)newsyslog inserts to indicate the fact that the
logs have been turned over should not be included. The ‘M’
flag marks this entry as a monitored log file. The ‘F’ flag
specifies that symbolic links should be followed.SIGHUP) to instead of
/var/run/syslog.pid.SIGHUP. Signal names must start with
“SIG” and be the signal name, not the number, e.g.,
SIGUSR1."’). The empty string,
‘""’, can be used to
prevent newsyslog from sending a signal or running
a command. You cannot specify both a command and a PID file.
NOTE: If you
specify a command to be run, newsyslog will not
send a SIGHUP to
syslogd(8).The newsyslog utility exits 0 on
success, and >0 if an error occurs.
Theodore Ts'o, MIT Project Athena
Copyright 1987, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| July 20, 2017 | OpenBSD-6.8 |