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 supports 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  log-
              file 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 logging 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 current period. For example, if a rotation time of 86400 is spec-
              ified, the hour, minute, and second 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 exam-
              ple, 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 example, 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 nominally 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) implementations, see  the  strf-
       time(3) man page for library-specific extensions.


       o %A - full weekday name (localized)


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


       o %B - full month name (localized)


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


       o %c - date and time (localized)


       o %d - 2-digit day of month


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


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


       o %j - 3-digit day of year


       o %M - 2-digit minute


       o %m - 2-digit month


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


       o %S - 2-digit second


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


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


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


       o %X - time (localized)


       o %x - date (localized)


       o %Y - 4-digit year


       o %y - 2-digit year


       o %Z - time zone name


       o %% - literal `%'




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