ROTATELOGS(8)                                                       rotatelogs                                                       ROTATELOGS(8)

NAME

       rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs

SYNOPSIS

       rotatelogs  [  -l  ]  [  -L  linkname ] [ -p program ] [ -f ] [ -t ] [ -v ] [ -e ] [ -c ] [ -n number-of-files ] logfile rotationtime|file-
       size(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 strftime(3) formatting with size-based rotation.

       -L linkname
              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 tail -F 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 argument.
              rotatelogs 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.

       -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)

       -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 '%' characters
              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 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.)

       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 synchronize 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, local 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 cre-
       ated 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) implementations, see the strftime(3) man page  for
       library-specific extensions.

       o %A - full weekday name (localized)

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

       o %B - full month name (localized)

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

       o %c - date and time (localized)

       o %d - 2-digit day of month

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

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

       o %j - 3-digit day of year

       o %M - 2-digit minute

       o %m - 2-digit month

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

       o %S - 2-digit second

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

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

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

       o %X - time (localized)

       o %x - date (localized)

       o %Y - 4-digit year

       o %y - 2-digit year

       o %Z - time zone name

       o %% - literal `%'

Apache HTTP Server                                                  2015-01-01                                                       ROTATELOGS(8)