rotatelogs.html.en revision d729f64685f2d2056159c34ccdbb0423cd14cb36
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
This file is generated from xml source: DO NOT EDIT
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
-->
<title>rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs - Apache HTTP Server</title>
<link href="/style/css/manual.css" rel="stylesheet" media="all" type="text/css" title="Main stylesheet" />
<link href="/style/css/manual-loose-100pc.css" rel="alternate stylesheet" media="all" type="text/css" title="No Sidebar - Default font size" />
<link href="/style/css/manual-print.css" rel="stylesheet" media="print" type="text/css" /><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/style/css/prettify.css" />
</script>
<body id="manual-page"><div id="page-header">
<p class="menu"><a href="/mod/">Modules</a> | <a href="/mod/quickreference.html">Directives</a> | <a href="http://wiki.apache.org/httpd/FAQ">FAQ</a> | <a href="/glossary.html">Glossary</a> | <a href="/sitemap.html">Sitemap</a></p>
<p class="apache">Apache HTTP Server Version 2.5</p>
<div id="path">
<a href="http://www.apache.org/">Apache</a> > <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/">HTTP Server</a> > <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/">Documentation</a> > <a href="../">Version 2.5</a> > <a href="./">Programs</a></div><div id="page-content"><div id="preamble"><h1>rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs</h1>
<div class="toplang">
<p><span>Available Languages: </span><a href="/en/programs/rotatelogs.html" title="English"> en </a> |
<a href="/ko/programs/rotatelogs.html" hreflang="ko" rel="alternate" title="Korean"> ko </a> |
<a href="/tr/programs/rotatelogs.html" hreflang="tr" rel="alternate" title="T�rk�e"> tr </a></p>
</div>
<p><code>rotatelogs</code> 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.</p>
</div>
<div id="quickview"><ul id="toc"><li><img alt="" src="/images/down.gif" /> <a href="#synopsis">Synopsis</a></li>
</ul><ul class="seealso"><li><a href="#comments_section">Comments</a></li></ul></div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="synopsis" id="synopsis">Synopsis</a></h2>
<p><code><strong>rotatelogs</strong>
[ -<strong>l</strong> ]
[ -<strong>L</strong> <var>linkname</var> ]
[ -<strong>p</strong> <var>program</var> ]
[ -<strong>f</strong> ]
[ -<strong>d</strong> ]
[ -<strong>v</strong> ]
[ -<strong>e</strong> ]
[ -<strong>c</strong> ]
[ -<strong>n</strong> <var>number-of-files</var> ]
<var>logfile</var>
<var>rotationtime</var>|<var>filesize</var>(B|K|M|G)
[ <var>offset</var> ]</code></p>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="options" id="options">Options</a></h2>
<dl>
<dt><code>-l</code></dt>
<dd>Causes the use of local time rather than GMT as the base for the
interval or for <code>strftime(3)</code> formatting with size-based
rotation.</dd>
<dt><code>-L</code> <var>linkname</var></dt>
<dd>Causes a hard link to be made from the current logfile
to the specified link name. This can be used to watch
the log continuously across rotations using a command like
<code>tail -F linkname</code>.</dd>
<dt><code>-p</code> <var>program</var></dt>
<dd>If given, <code>rotatelogs</code> 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
executing after a rotation, the old log file is passed as the second
argument. <code>rotatelogs</code> 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.</dd>
<dt><code>-f</code></dt>
<dd>Causes the logfile to be opened immediately, as soon as
<code>rotatelogs</code> 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)</dd>
<dt><code>-d</code></dt>
<dd>Creates the parent directories of the path that the log file will be
placed in if they do not already exist. This allows <code>strftime(3)</code>
formatting to be used in the path and not just the filename.</dd>
<dt><code>-t</code></dt>
<dd>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.
</dd>
<dt><code>-v</code></dt>
<dd>Produce verbose output on STDERR. The output contains
the result of the configuration parsing, and all file open and
close actions.</dd>
<dt><code>-e</code></dt>
<dd>Echo logs through to stdout. Useful when logs need to be further
processed in real time by a further tool in the chain.</dd>
<dt><code>-c</code></dt>
<dd>Create log file for each interval, even if empty.</dd>
<dt><code>-n <var>number-of-files</var></code></dt>
<dd>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".</dd>
<dt><code><var>logfile</var></code></dt>
<dd><p>The path plus basename of the logfile. If <var>logfile</var>
includes any '%' characters, it is treated as a format string for
<code>strftime(3)</code>. Otherwise, the suffix
<var>.nnnnnnnnnn</var> is automatically added and is the time in
seconds (unless the -t option is used). Both formats compute the
start time from the beginning of the current period. For example,
if a rotation time of 86400 is specified, the hour, minute, and
second fields created from the <code>strftime(3)</code> format will
all be zero, referring to the beginning of the current 24-hour
period (midnight).</p>
<p>When using <code>strftime(3)</code> filename formatting,
be sure the log file format has enough granularity to produce
a different file name each time the logs are rotated. Otherwise
rotation will overwrite the same file instead of starting a new
one. For example, if <var>logfile</var> was
megabytes, but 5 megabytes was reached twice in the same day, the
same log file name would be produced and log rotation would keep
writing to the same file.</p>
</dd>
<dt><code><var>rotationtime</var></code></dt>
<dd>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.)</dd>
<dt><code><var>filesize</var>(B|K|M|G)</code></dt>
<dd>The maximum file size in followed by exactly one of the letters
<code>B</code> (Bytes), <code>K</code> (KBytes), <code>M</code> (MBytes)
or <code>G</code> (GBytes).
<p>
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.
</p>
</dd>
<dt><code><var>offset</var></code></dt>
<dd>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 <code>-300</code> for this argument.
In most cases, <code>-l</code> should be used instead of specifying
an offset.</dd>
</dl>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="examples" id="examples">Examples</a></h2>
<div class="example"><p><code>
</code></p></div>
the system time at which the log nominally starts (this time
will always be a multiple 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.</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
</code></p></div>
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.</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
</code></p></div>
<p>This configuration will rotate the logfile whenever it reaches
a size of 5 megabytes.</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
</code></p></div>
<p>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
<div class="example"><p><code>
</code></p></div>
startup and then truncating the file once per day. It is expected
in this scenario that a separate process (such as tail) would
process the file in real time.</p>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="portability" id="portability">Portability</a></h2>
<p>The following logfile format string substitutions should be
supported by all <code>strftime(3)</code> implementations, see
the <code>strftime(3)</code> man page for library-specific
extensions.</p>
<table class="bordered"><tr><td><code>%A</code></td><td>full weekday name (localized)</td></tr>
<tr class="odd"><td><code>%a</code></td><td>3-character weekday name (localized)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%B</code></td><td>full month name (localized)</td></tr>
<tr class="odd"><td><code>%b</code></td><td>3-character month name (localized)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%c</code></td><td>date and time (localized)</td></tr>
<tr class="odd"><td><code>%d</code></td><td>2-digit day of month</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%H</code></td><td>2-digit hour (24 hour clock)</td></tr>
<tr class="odd"><td><code>%I</code></td><td>2-digit hour (12 hour clock)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%j</code></td><td>3-digit day of year</td></tr>
<tr class="odd"><td><code>%M</code></td><td>2-digit minute</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%m</code></td><td>2-digit month</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%S</code></td><td>2-digit second</td></tr>
<tr class="odd"><td><code>%U</code></td><td>2-digit week of year
(Sunday first day of week)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%W</code></td><td>2-digit week of year
(Monday first day of week)</td></tr>
<tr class="odd"><td><code>%w</code></td><td>1-digit weekday
(Sunday first day of week)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%X</code></td><td>time (localized)</td></tr>
<tr class="odd"><td><code>%x</code></td><td>date (localized)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%Y</code></td><td>4-digit year</td></tr>
<tr class="odd"><td><code>%y</code></td><td>2-digit year</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%Z</code></td><td>time zone name</td></tr>
<tr class="odd"><td><code>%%</code></td><td>literal `%'</td></tr>
</table>
</div></div>
<div class="bottomlang">
<p><span>Available Languages: </span><a href="/en/programs/rotatelogs.html" title="English"> en </a> |
<a href="/ko/programs/rotatelogs.html" hreflang="ko" rel="alternate" title="Korean"> ko </a> |
<a href="/tr/programs/rotatelogs.html" hreflang="tr" rel="alternate" title="T�rk�e"> tr </a></p>
</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img src="/images/up.gif" alt="top" /></a></div><div class="section"><h2><a id="comments_section" name="comments_section">Comments</a></h2><div class="warning"><strong>Notice:</strong><br />This is not a Q&A section. Comments placed here should be pointed towards suggestions on improving the documentation or server, and may be removed again by our moderators if they are either implemented or considered invalid/off-topic. Questions on how to manage the Apache HTTP Server should be directed at either our IRC channel, #httpd, on Freenode, or sent to our <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/lists.html">mailing lists</a>.</div>
var comments_shortname = 'httpd';
var comments_identifier = 'http://httpd.apache.org/docs/trunk/programs/rotatelogs.html';
(function(w, d) {
if (w.location.hostname.toLowerCase() == "httpd.apache.org") {
d.write('<div id="comments_thread"><\/div>');
var s = d.createElement('script');
s.type = 'text/javascript';
s.async = true;
s.src = 'https://comments.apache.org/show_comments.lua?site=' + comments_shortname + '&page=' + comments_identifier;
(d.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || d.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(s);
}
else {
d.write('<div id="comments_thread">Comments are disabled for this page at the moment.<\/div>');
}
})(window, document);
//--><!]]></script></div><div id="footer">
<p class="apache">Copyright 2013 The Apache Software Foundation.<br />Licensed under the <a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0">Apache License, Version 2.0</a>.</p>
<p class="menu"><a href="/mod/">Modules</a> | <a href="/mod/quickreference.html">Directives</a> | <a href="http://wiki.apache.org/httpd/FAQ">FAQ</a> | <a href="/glossary.html">Glossary</a> | <a href="/sitemap.html">Sitemap</a></p></div><script type="text/javascript"><!--//--><![CDATA[//><!--
if (typeof(prettyPrint) !== 'undefined') {
prettyPrint();
}
//--><!]]></script>
</body></html>