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ROTATELOGS(8)                                    rotatelogs                                    ROTATELOGS(8)



NAME
       rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs


SYNOPSIS
       rotatelogs [ -l ] [ -f ] logfile rotationtime|filesizeM [ offset ]



SUMMARY
       rotatelogs  is  a  simple program for use in conjunction with Apache's piped logfile feature. It sup-ports supports
       ports 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. Note that using -l in an environment which changes the
              GMT offset (such as for BST or DST) can lead to unpredictable results!

       -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 log-ging logging
              ging tools). Available in version 2.2.9 and later.

       logfile
              The path plus basename of the logfile. If logfile includes any '%' characters, it  is  treated
              as  a  format string for strftime(3). Otherwise, the suffix .nnnnnnnnnn is automatically added
              and is the time in seconds. Both formats compute the start time from the beginning of the cur-rent current
              rent period. For example, if a rotation time of 86400 is specified, the hour, minute, and sec-ond second
              ond fields created from the strftime(3) format will all be zero, referring to the beginning of
              the current 24-hour period (midnight).

       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.)

       filesizeM
              The maximum file size in megabytes followed by the letter M to specify size rather than  time.

       offset The  number of minutes offset from UTC. If omitted, zero is assumed and UTC is used. For exam-ple, example,
              ple, 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 nomi-nally nominally
       nally 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/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.


PORTABILITY
       The  following logfile format string substitutions should be supported by all strftime(3) implementa-tions, implementations,
       tions, see the strftime(3) man page for library-specific extensions.


       • %A - full weekday name (localized)


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


       • %B - full month name (localized)


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


       • %c - date and time (localized)


       • %d - 2-digit day of month


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


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


       • %j - 3-digit day of year


       • %M - 2-digit minute


       • %m - 2-digit month


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


       • %S - 2-digit second


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


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


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


       • %X - time (localized)


       • %x - date (localized)


       • %Y - 4-digit year


       • %y - 2-digit year


       • %Z - time zone name


       • %% - literal `%'




Apache HTTP Server                               2008-05-10                                    ROTATELOGS(8)