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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. It supports

rotation based on a time interval or maximum size of the log.</p>

</summary>

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

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

[ -<strong>l</strong> ]

[ -<strong>L</strong> <var>linkname</var> ]

[ -<strong>f</strong> ]

[ -<strong>v</strong> ]

[ -<strong>e</strong> ]

<var>logfile</var>

<var>rotationtime</var>|<var>filesize</var>(B|K|M|G)

[ <var>offset</var> ]</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 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>-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>-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><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

<code>/var/logs/errorlog.%Y-%m-%d</code> with log rotation at 5

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>

</section>

<section id="examples"><title>Examples</title>

<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 -l /var/logs/logfile.%Y.%m.%d 86400" common

</example>

<p>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.</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>

<example>

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

</example>

<p>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 scenario that a separate process (such as tail) would

process the file in real time.</p>

</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>