Managing log files with logrotate
Log files keep track of events on the system. They are essential for debugging problems and monitoring live machines. Log files grow as time passes and more events are recorded. Since the older data is less useful than the current data, log files are renamed when they reach a size limit and the oldest files are deleted.
Getting ready
The logrotate command can restrict the size of the log file. The system logger facility appends information to the end of a log file without deleting earlier data. Thus a log file will grow larger over time. The logrotate command scans log files defined in the configuration file. It will keep the last 100 kilobytes (for example, specified SIZE = 100 k) from the log file and move the rest of the data (older log data) to a new file logfile_name.1. When the old-data file (logfile_name.1) exceeds SIZE, logrotate renames that file to logfile_name.2 and starts a new logfile_name.1. The logrotate command can compress the older logs as...
