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<parentdocument href="./">Programs</parentdocument>

<title>rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs</title>

<summary>

<p><code>rotatelogs</code> is a simple program for use in

conjunction with Apache's piped logfile feature. For example:</p>

<example>

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

</example>

<p>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 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>

<example>

CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/logs/logfile 5M" common

</example>

<p>This configuration will rotate the logfile whenever it reaches

a size of 5 megabytes.</p>

<example>

ErrorLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/logs/errorlog.%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M_%S 5M"

</example>

<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

<code>errorlog.YYYY-mm-dd-HH_MM_SS</code>.</p>

</summary>

<section id="synopsis"><title>Synopsis</title>

<p><code><strong>rotatelogs</strong>

[ -<strong>l</strong> ]

<var>logfile</var>

[ <var>rotationtime</var> [ <var>offset</var> ]] |

[ <var>filesize</var>M ]</code></p>

</section>

<section id="options"><title>Options</title>

<dl>

<dt><code>-l</code></dt>

<dd>Causes the use of local time rather than GMT as the base for the

interval. Note that using <code>-l</code> in an environment which changes the

GMT offset (such as for BST or DST) can lead to unpredictable results!</dd>

<dt><code><var>logfile</var></code></dt>

<dd>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. Both formats compute the start time from the beginning of

the current period.</dd>

<dt><code><var>rotationtime</var></code></dt>

<dd>The time between log file rotations in seconds.</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.</dd>

<dt><code><var>filesize</var>M</code></dt>

<dd>The maximum file size in megabytes followed by the letter

<code>M</code> to specify size rather than time. Use this parameter

in place of both rotationtime and offset.</dd>

</dl>

</section>

<section id="portability"><title>Portability</title>

<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 border="1" style="zebra">

<tr><td><code>%A</code></td><td>full weekday name (localized)</td></tr>

<tr><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><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><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><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><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>%p</code></td><td>am/pm of 12 hour clock (localized)</td></tr>

<tr><td><code>%S</code></td><td>2-digit second</td></tr>

<tr><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><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><td><code>%x</code></td><td>date (localized)</td></tr>

<tr><td><code>%Y</code></td><td>4-digit year</td></tr>

<tr><td><code>%y</code></td><td>2-digit year</td></tr>

<tr><td><code>%Z</code></td><td>time zone name</td></tr>

<tr><td><code>%%</code></td><td>literal `%'</td></tr>

</table>

</section>

</manualpage>