Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 13:42:41 -0800 From: Walt Pawley <walt@wump.org> To: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Log archiving question Message-ID: <p0624081bc3a45737127a@[10.0.0.10]>
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Once upon a time I messed with FreeBSD rather frequently. Then
things changed. Time passed and I'm back to tinkering with
things a little, though mostly from the perspective of a Mac OS
X user. In that distant past, I found that "rotating" log files
in the classical manner - changing the number and dropping any
log needing another digit - did not preserve data that was
needed to work on some of the problems we were seeing. So, I
changed the way "rotating" was done to never delete the logs in
question, instead naming the archived file uniquely with a time
code. Here's an example of such a modification for Mac OS X
Jaguar (a bit out of date but I use it 24/7) to deal with its
equivalent of /var/log/messages. It's offered just to show the
nature of the results.
--
echo ""
echo -n "Rotating log files:"0
cd /var/log
for i in system.log; do
if [ -f "${i}" ]; then
echo -n " ${i}"
if [ -x /usr/bin/gzip ]; then gzext=".gz"; else gzext=""; fi
if [ -f "${i}.6${gzext}" ]; then mv -f "${i}.6${gzext}"
"${i}.7${gzext}"; fi
if [ -f "${i}.5${gzext}" ]; then mv -f "${i}.5${gzext}"
"${i}.6${gzext}"; fi
if [ -f "${i}.4${gzext}" ]; then mv -f "${i}.4${gzext}"
"${i}.5${gzext}"; fi
if [ -f "${i}.3${gzext}" ]; then mv -f "${i}.3${gzext}"
"${i}.4${gzext}"; fi
if [ -f "${i}.2${gzext}" ]; then mv -f "${i}.2${gzext}"
"${i}.3${gzext}"; fi
if [ -f "${i}.1${gzext}" ]; then mv -f "${i}.1${gzext}"
"${i}.2${gzext}"; fi
if [ -f "${i}.0${gzext}" ]; then mv -f "${i}.0${gzext}"
"${i}.1${gzext}"; fi
# if [ -f "${i}" ]; then mv -f "${i}" "${i}.0" && if [ -x
/usr/bin/gzip ]; then gzip -9 "${i}.0"; fi; fi
# touch "${i}" && chmod 640 "${i}" && chown root:admin "${i}"
# 23 Sep 2007 1342
# Modification to keep system.log files by date rather than rotating them
# NOTE: no provision for deleting the accumulation is provided!!!!
X=$(date|awk '{print 0$3$2$6}')
X=${i}.${X:0-9}
mv -f "${i}" "${X}"
touch "${i}" && chmod 640 "${i}" && chown root:admin "${i}"
if [ -x /usr/bin/gzip ]; then gzip -9 "${X}"; fi
fi
done
if [ -f /var/run/syslog.pid ]; then kill -HUP $(cat
/var/run/syslog.pid | head -1); fi
echo ""
--
Since I recently set up a PCBSD 1.4.1 machine to play with, I
see that log "rotation" is no longer done with scripts but
rather with newsyslog. If I read the man page correctly,
newsyslog "rotates" the log files in the good old way though it
seems to have a much more comprehensive approach as to when to
do it.
I've had no difficulties with the change made on my Mac OS X
Jaguar system - if it affects something, the something is
something I apparently don't do. So, all that preamble brings
me to my question. Are there things that modifying the archived
log data file names would interfere with?
--
Walter M. Pawley <walt@wump.org>
Wump Research & Company
676 River Bend Road, Roseburg, OR 97470
541-672-8975
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