phpman > man > rotatelogs(8)

ROTATELOGS(8)                                rotatelogs                                ROTATELOGS(8)



NAME
       rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs


SYNOPSIS
       rotatelogs  [ -l ] [ -L linkname ] [ -p program ] [ -f ] [ -D ] [ -t ] [ -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 strf‐‐
              time(3) formatting with size-based rotation.

       -L 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 executing after a rotation, the old log file is passed as the second argu‐
              ment.  rotatelogs does not wait for the specified program to terminate before continu‐
              ing 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 inher‐
              its the environment.

       -f     Causes the logfile to be opened immediately, as soon as rotatelogs 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)

       -D     Creates the parent directories of the path that the log file will be placed in if they
              do  not  already  exist. This allows strftime(3) formatting to be used in the path and
              not just the filename.

       -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 '%' charac‐
              ters 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".
              Available in 2.4.5 and later.

       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  ro‐
              tated 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/log/logfile 86400" common



       This  creates  the files /var/log/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  syn‐
       chronize  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/log/logfile.%Y.%m.%d 86400" common



       This creates the files /var/log/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, lo‐
       cal time.


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



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


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



       This  creates  the  file /var/log/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.


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


       • %A - full weekday name (localized)


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


       • %B - full month name (localized)


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


       • %c - date and time (localized)


       • %d - 2-digit day of month


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


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


       • %j - 3-digit day of year


       • %M - 2-digit minute


       • %m - 2-digit month


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


       • %S - 2-digit second


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


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


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


       • %X - time (localized)


       • %x - date (localized)


       • %Y - 4-digit year


       • %y - 2-digit year


       • %Z - time zone name


       • %% - literal `%'




Apache HTTP Server                           2020-06-10                                ROTATELOGS(8)