Rotate Log Question

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Posted by jethbrown, 07-27-2007, 03:48 PM
Can someone tell me what the purpose of rotating log files is and how often should I do it? Reason I ask is I installed Logview (www.logview.org) on my server today, and noticed it was there. I also noticed my mail log was 850 megs, which is a lot in my opinion. Thanks.
Posted by Jakiao, 07-27-2007, 09:26 PM
Rotating log files is very useful for maintaining a single day of data in a single log. Or, more importantly, not having a single log file that is insane large. On 32-bit systems, for example, if a logfile hits 2GB, it stops working. Apache breaks when that happens, for example. So rotating logs is good for being clean and neat.
Posted by Linux Admin, 07-28-2007, 08:51 AM
Log rotate is tool which is designed to ease administration of systems that generate large numbers of log files. It allows automatic rotation, compression, removal, and mailing of log files. Each log file may be handled daily, weekly, monthly, or when it grows too large. With this tool you keep logs longer with less disk space. This is a very useful tool as it keeps the logs from growing large, as large log files can cause a lot of issues.

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