NEWSYSLOG(8) BSD System Manager's Manual NEWSYSLOG(8)NAMEnewsyslog - trim log files to manageable sizes
SYNOPSISnewsyslog [-Fmnrv] [-a directory] [-f config_file] [log ...]
DESCRIPTIONnewsyslog is a program that 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. The archived logs may be option-
ally compressed to save space.
The options are as follows:
-a directory
Specify a directory into which archived log files will be writ-
ten. If directory is a relative path, it is appended to the
parent directory of each log and the archived log is stored in
the result. If an absolute path is given, all archived logs are
stored in the given directory. If directory does not exist for a
specified log, it is ignored for that entry and the log is rotat-
ed as if the -a option was not specified.
-F Force newsyslog to trim logs regardless of the size and/or age
requirements specified in /etc/newsyslog.conf. This option may be
combined with the -n or -v flags to aid in debugging problems
with /etc/newsyslog.conf.
-f config_file
Use config_file instead of /etc/newsyslog.conf for the configura-
tion file.
-m Monitoring mode; only entries marked with an 'M' in flags are
processed. For each log file being monitored, any log output
since the last time newsyslog was run with the -m flag is mailed
to the user listed in the monitor notification section.
-n Do not trim the logs, but instead print out what would be done if
this option were not specified.
-r Removes the restriction that newsyslog must be running as root.
Note that in this mode newsyslog will not be able to send a
SIGHUP signal to syslogd(8).
-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.
If one or more log files are specified on the command line, only the
specified logs will be rotated. Note that each log specified must have an
entry in /etc/newsyslog.conf.
A log can be archived because of two reasons: The log file can have grown
bigger than a preset size in kilobytes, or a preset number of hours may
have elapsed since the last log archive. The granularity of newsyslog is
dependent on how often it is scheduled to run in cron(8). Since the pro-
gram is quite fast, it may be scheduled to run every hour without any ill
effects.
When starting up, newsyslog reads in a configuration file to determine
which logs should be looked at. 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 up to three optional fields, with whitespace
separating each field. Blank lines or lines beginning with a hash mark
('#') are ignored. The fields of the configuration file are as follows:
logfile_name The full pathname of the system log file to be ar-
chived.
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 fields may be
numeric, or a name which is looked up in the system
password and group databases. For backwards compatibil-
ity, a '.' may be used instead of a ':'. If either
owner or group is not specified, the owner and/or group
of the existing log file is used.
mode File mode (in octal) to use for created log files and
archives.
count The number of archives to be kept besides the log file
itself.
size When the size of the log file (in kilobytes) reaches
this point, the log file is trimmed as described above.
If this field is replaced by an '*', then the size of
the log file is not taken into account when determining
when to trim the log file. By default, files smaller
than 512 bytes are not rotated unless the 'B' (binary)
flag is set. This prevents newsyslog from rotating
files consisting solely of a message indicating that
the log file has been turned over.
when The when field can consist of an interval, a specific
time, or both. If the when field consists of an aster-
isk ('*'), log rotation will depend only on the con-
tents of the size field. Otherwise, the when field con-
sists of an optional interval in hours, possibly fol-
lowed by an '@'-sign and a time in a restricted ISO
8601 format or by a '$'-sign and a time specification
for logfile rotation at a fixed time once per day, per
week or per month.
If a time is specified, the log file will only be
trimmed if newsyslog is run within one hour of the
specified time. If an interval is specified, the log
file will be trimmed if that many hours have passed
since the last rotation. When both a time and an inter-
val are specified, both conditions must be satisfied
for the rotation to take place.
There is no provision for the specification of a
timezone. There is little point in specifying an expli-
cit minutes or seconds component in the current imple-
mentation, since the only comparison is 'within the
hour'.
ISO 8601 restricted time format: The lead-in character
for a restricted ISO 8601 time is an '@'-sign. The par-
ticular format of the time in restricted ISO 8601 is:
[[[[[cc]yy]mm]dd][T[hh[mm[ss]]]]]. Optional date fields
default to the appropriate component of the current
date; optional time fields default to midnight For ex-
ample, if today is January 22, 1999, the following date
specifications are all equivalent:
'19990122T000000'
'990122T000000'
'0122T000000'
'22T000000'
'T000000'
'T0000'
'T00'
'22T'
'T'
''
Day, week and month time format: The lead-in character
for day, week and month specification is a '$'-sign.
The particular format of day, week and month specifica-
tion 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 (same as
@T00)
$D23 rotate every day at 23:00 hr (same as
@T23)
$W0D23 rotate every week on Sunday at 23:00 hr
$W5D16 rotate every week on Friday at 16:00 hr
$M1D0 rotate on the first day of every month at
midnight (i.e., the start of the day;
same as @01T00)
$M5D6 rotate on every 5th day of the month at
6:00 hr (same as @05T06)
flags The optional flags field specifies if the archives
should have any special processing done to the archived
log files. The 'Z' flag will make the archive files
compressed to save space using gzip(1) or compress(1),
depending on compilation options. The 'B' flag means
that the file is a binary file, and so the ASCII mes-
sage which newsyslog inserts to indicate the fact that
the logs have been turned over should not be included.
The 'M' flag marks this entry as a monitored log file.
The 'F' flag specifies that symbolic links should be
followed.
monitor Specify the username (or email address) that should re-
ceive notification messages if this is a monitored log
file. Notification messages are sent as email; the
operator deserves what they get if they mark the
sendmail(8) log file as monitored. This field is only
valid when the 'M' flag is set.
pid_file This optional field specifies a file containing the PID
of a process to send a signal (usually SIGHUP) to in-
stead of /var/run/syslog.pid.
signal Specify the signal to send to the process instead of
SIGHUP. Signal names must start with "SIG" and be the
signal name, not the number, e.g., SIGUSR1.
command This optional field specifies a command to run instead
of sending a signal to the process. The command must be
enclosed in double quotes ('"'). The empty string, "|"
. if "Ql"Op" .ds A1 "" '""', can use used to
prevent newsyslog from sending a signal or running a
command. You cannot specify both a command and a PID
file. NOTE: If you specify a command to be run,
newsyslog will not send a SIGHUP to syslogd(8).
FILES
/etc/newsyslog.conf default configuration file
SEE ALSOcompress(1), gzip(1), syslog(3), syslogd(8)AUTHORS
Theodore Ts'o, MIT Project Athena
Copyright 1987, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MirOS BSD #10-current January 24, 2003 3
