FreeBSD man pages : newsyslog (8)
NEWSYSLOG(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual NEWSYSLOG(8)
NAME
newsyslog - maintain system log files to manageable sizes
SYNOPSIS
newsyslog [-Fnrv] [-f config_file] [-a directory] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
The newsyslog utility should be scheduled to run periodically by cron(8).
When it is executed it archives log files if necessary. If a log file is
determined to require archiving, newsyslog rearranges the files so that
``logfile'' is empty, ``logfile.0'' has the last period's logs in it,
``logfile.1'' has the next to last period's logs in it, and so on, up to
a user-specified number of archived logs. Optionally the archived logs
can be compressed to save space.
A log can be archived for three reasons:
1. It is larger than the configured size (in kilobytes).
2. A configured number of hours have elapsed since the log was
last archived.
3. This is the specific configured hour for rotation of the log.
The granularity of newsyslog is dependent on how often it is scheduled to
run by cron(8). Since the program is quite fast, it may be scheduled to
run every hour without any ill effects, and mode three (above) assumes
that this is so.
When starting up, newsyslog reads in a configuration file to determine
which logs may potentially be archived. By default, this configuration
file is /etc/newsyslog.conf. Each line of the file contains information
about a particular log file that should be handled by newsyslog. Each
line has five mandatory fields and four optional fields, with whitespace
separating each field. Blank lines or lines beginning with ``#'' are
ignored. If ``#'' is placed in the middle of the line, ``#'' character
and the rest of the line after it is ignored. To prevent special mean-
ing, the ``#'' may be escaped with ``\'', in this case preceding ``\'' is
removed and ``#'' treated as ordinary character. The fields of the con-
figuration file are as follows:
logfile_name
Name of the system log file to be archived.
owner:group
This optional field specifies the owner and group for the archive
file. The ":" is essential, even if the owner or group field is
left blank. The field may be numeric, or a name which is present
in /etc/passwd or /etc/group.
mode Specify the mode of the log file and archives.
count Specify the number of archive files to be kept besides the log
file itself.
size When the size of the log file reaches size in kilobytes, the log
file will be trimmed as described above. If this field is
replaced by an asterisk (`*'), then the size of the log file is
not taken into account when determining when to trim the log
file.
when The when field can consist of an interval, a specific time, or
both. If the when field is an asterisk (`*') log rotation will
depend only on the contents of the size field. Otherwise, the
when field consists of an optional interval in hours, optionally
followed by an `@'-sign and a time in a restricted ISO 8601 for-
mat or by an `$'-sign and a time specification for logfile rota-
tion at a fixed time once per day, per week or per month.
If a time is specified, the log file will only be trimmed if
newsyslog is run within one hour of the specified time. If an
interval is specified, the log file will be trimmed if that many
hours have passed since the last rotation. When both a time and
an interval are specified, both conditions must be satisfied for
the rotation to take place.
There is no provision for specification of a timezone. There is
little point in specifying an explicit minutes or seconds compo-
nent in the current implementation, since the only comparison is
`within the hour'.
ISO 8601 restricted time format
The lead-in character for a restricted ISO 8601 time is an
`@'-sign. The particular format of the time in restricted ISO
8601 is: [[[[[cc]yy]mm]dd][T[hh[mm[ss]]]]]. Optional date fields
default to the appropriate component of the current date;
optional time fields default to midnight; hence if today is Jan-
uary 22, 1999, the following date specifications are all equiva-
lent:
`19990122T000000'
`990122T000000'
`0122T000000'
`22T000000'
`T000000'
`T0000'
`T00'
`22T'
`T'
`'
Day, week and month time format
The lead-in character for day, week and month specification is a
`$'-sign. The particular format of day, week and month specifi-
cation is: [Dhh], [Ww[Dhh]] and [Mdd[Dhh]] respectively.
Optional time fields default to midnight. The ranges for day and
hour specifications are:
hh hours, range 0 ... 23
w day of week, range 0 ... 6, 0 = Sunday
dd day of month, range 1 ... 31, or the letter L or l
to specify the last day of the month.
Some examples:
$D0 rotate every night at midnight
$D23 rotate every day at 23:00 hr
$W0D23 rotate every week on Sunday at 23:00 hr
$W5D16 rotate every week on Friday at 16:00 hr
$MLD0 rotate at the last day of every month at midnight
$M5D6 rotate on every 5th day of month at 6:00 hr
flags This optional field specifies if the archive should have any spe-
cial processing done to the archived log files. The Z flag will
make the archive files compress to save space by using gzip(1).
The J flag will make the archive files compress to save space by
using bzip2(1). The B flag means that the file is a binary file,
and so the ASCII message which newsyslog inserts to indicate the
fact that the logs have been turned over should not be included.
The - flag means nothing, but can be used as a placeholder when
the path_to_pid_file field is specified. The G flag means that
the specified logfile_name is a shell pattern, which instructs
the newsyslog to archive all filenames matching this pattern
using the same options. See glob(3) for details on syntax and
matching rules. The W flag in conjunction with the Z flag or the
J flag means that newsyslog should wait for previously started
compression jobs to complete before starting a new one for this
entry. When it is used along with the G flag, in the case when
several logfiles match the pattern and should be compressed, the
newsyslog will compress logs one by one, ensuring that only one
compression job is running at a time.
path_to_pid_file
This optional field specifies the file name to read to find the
daemon process id. If this field is present, a signal_number is
sent the process id contained in this file. This field must
start with "/" in order to be recognized properly.
signal_number
This optional field specifies the signal number will be sent to
the daemon process. By default a SIGHUP will be sent.
OPTIONS
The following options can be used with newsyslog:
-f config_file
Instruct newsyslog to use config_file instead of
/etc/newsyslog.conf for its configuration file.
-a directory
Specify a directory into which archived log files will be writ-
ten. If a relative path is given, it is appended to the path of
each log file and the resulting path is used as the directory
into which the archived log for that log file will be written.
If an absolute path is given, all archived logs are written into
the given directory. If any component of the path directory does
not exist, it will be created when newsyslog is run.
-v Place newsyslog in verbose mode. In this mode it will print out
each log and its reasons for either trimming that log or skipping
it.
-n Cause newsyslog not to trim the logs, but to print out what it
would do if this option were not specified.
-r Remove the restriction that newsyslog must be running as root.
Of course, newsyslog will not be able to send a HUP signal to
syslogd(8) so this option should only be used in debugging.
-F Force newsyslog to trim the logs, even if the trim conditions
have not been met. This option is useful for diagnosing system
problems by providing you with fresh logs that contain only the
problems.
If additional command line arguments are given, newsyslog will only exam-
ine log files that match those arguments; otherwise, it will examine all
files listed in the configuration file.
FILES
/etc/newsyslog.conf newsyslog configuration file
BUGS
Doesn't yet automatically read the logs to find security breaches.
AUTHORS
Theodore Ts'o, MIT Project Athena
Copyright 1987, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
COMPATIBILITY
Previous versions of the newsyslog utility used the dot (``.'') character
to distinguish the group name. Beginning with FreeBSD 3.3, this has been
changed to a colon (``:'') character so that user and group names may
contain the dot character. The dot (``.'') character is still accepted
for backwards compatibility.
SEE ALSO
gzip(1), syslog(3), chown(8), syslogd(8)
FreeBSD 4.8 April 4, 2000 FreeBSD 4.8
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