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ROTATELOGS(8)                     rotatelogs                     ROTATELOGS(8)

NAME
       rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs

SYNOPSIS
       rotatelogs [ -l ] [ -L linkname ] [ -p program ] [ -f ] [ -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 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 continu-
              ously 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  execut-
              ing  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 rotatel-
              ogs 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".
       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/logs/logfile 86400" common

       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 mul-
       tiple  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/logs/logfile.%Y.%m.%d 86400" common

       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.

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

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

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

       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 sce-
       nario 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                2013-06-13                     ROTATELOGS(8)