.\" $NetBSD: newsyslog.8,v 1.46 2021/03/02 10:17:25 uwe Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1999, 2000 Andrew Doran .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products .\" derived from this software without specific prior written permission .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES .\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. .\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, .\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT .\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, .\" DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY .\" THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT .\" (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF .\" THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" This file contains changes from the Open Software Foundation. .\" .\" Copyright 1988, 1989 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .\" .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software .\" and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is .\" hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice .\" appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and .\" this permission notice appear in supporting documentation, .\" and that the names of M.I.T. and the M.I.T. S.I.P.B. not be .\" used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution .\" of the software without specific, written prior permission. .\" M.I.T. and the M.I.T. S.I.P.B. make no representations about .\" the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is .\" provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. .\" .\" from FreeBSD: newsyslog.8,v 1.14.2.1 1999/02/25 18:38:33 wollman Exp .\" .Dd March 1, 2021 .Dt NEWSYSLOG 8 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm newsyslog , .Nm newsyslog.conf .Nd maintain system log files to manageable sizes .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm newsyslog .Op Fl Fnrsv .Op Fl f Ar config_file .Op Pa file ... .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm is a program that should be scheduled to run periodically by .Xr cron 8 . When it is executed it archives log files if necessary. If a log file is determined to require archiving, .Nm rearranges the files so that .Dq Va logfile is empty, .Dq Va logfile Ns Li \&.0 has the last period's logs in it, .Dq Va logfile Ns Li \&.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. .Pp A log can be archived for three reasons: .Bl -enum -offset indent .It It is larger than the configured size (in kilobytes). .It A configured number of hours have elapsed since the log was last archived. .It The configured time for rotation of the log occurred within the last 60 minutes. .El .Pp The granularity of .Nm is dependent on how often it is scheduled to run by .Xr cron 8 . It is recommended that .Nm be run once hourly. .Pp When starting up, .Nm reads in a configuration file to determine which logs may potentially be archived. By default, this configuration file is .Pa /etc/newsyslog.conf . Each line of the file contains information about a particular log file that should be handled by .Nm . Each line has six mandatory fields and three optional fields, with whitespace separating each field. Blank lines or lines beginning with .Ql # are ignored. The fields of the configuration file are as follows: .Bl -tag -width Fl .It Ar logfile_name Name of the system log file to be archived. .It Ar owner Ns Li \&: Ns Ar group This optional field specifies the owner and group for the archive file. The .Ql \&: is essential, even if the .Ar owner or .Ar group field is left blank. The field may be numeric, or a name which is present in .Pa /etc/passwd or .Pa /etc/group . For backward compatibility, .Ql \&. is usable in lieu of .Ql \&: , however use of this feature is discouraged. .It Ar mode Specify the mode of the log file and archives. .It Ar ngen Specify the number of archive files to be kept besides the log file itself. .It Ar size When the size of the log file reaches .Ar size kilobytes, the log file will be trimmed as described above. If this field is replaced by an asterisk .Pq Ql \&* , then the size of the log file is not taken into account when determining when to trim the log file. .It Ar when The .Ar when field can consist of an interval, a specific time, or both. If the .Ar when field is an asterisk .Pq Ql \&* log rotation will depend only on the contents of the .Ar size field. Otherwise, the .Ar when field consists of an optional interval in hours, optionally followed by an .So Li \&@ Sc Ns No -sign and a time in a restricted ISO 8601 format or by an .So Li \&$ Sc Ns No -sign and a time specification for logfile rotation at a fixed time once per day, per week or per month. .Pp If a time is specified, the log file will only be trimmed if .Nm 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, the log will be trimmed if either condition is met. .Pp There is no provision for specification of a timezone. There is little point in specifying an explicit minutes or seconds component in the current implementation, since the only comparison is `within the hour'. .Pp .Em ISO 8601 restricted time format .Pp The lead-in character for a restricted ISO 8601 time is an .So Li \&@ Sc Ns No -sign . The particular format of the time in restricted ISO 8601 is: .Sm off .Oo .Oo .Oo .Oo .Oo .Va \&cc .Oc .Va \&yy .Oc .Va \&mm .Oc .Va \&dd .Oc .Oo .Li \&T .Oo .Va \&hh .Oo .Va \&mm .Oo .Va \&ss .Oc .Oc .Oc .Oc .Oc . .Sm on Optional date fields default to the appropriate component of the current date; optional time fields default to midnight; hence if today is January 22, 1999, the following date specifications are all equivalent: .Pp .Bl -item -compact -offset indent .It .Sq Li 19990122T000000 .It .Sq Li 990122T000000 .It .Sq Li 0122T000000 .It .Sq Li 22T000000 .It .Sq Li T000000 .It .Sq Li T0000 .It .Sq Li T00 .It .Sq Li 22T .It .Sq Li \&T .It .Sq Li \& .El .Pp .Em Day, week and month time format .Pp The lead-in character for day, week and month specification is a .So Li \&$ Sc Ns No -sign . The particular format of day, week and month specification is: .Oo .Li D Ns Va \&hh .Oc , .Sm off .Oo .Li W Ns Va \&w .Oo .Li D Ns Va \&hh .Oc .Oc .Sm on and .Sm off .Oo .Li M Ns Va \&dd .Oo .Li D Ns Va \&hh .Oc .Oc .Sm on respectively. Optional time fields default to midnight. The ranges for day and hour specifications are: .Pp .Bl -tag -width Ds -compact -offset indent .It Ar hh hours, range 0 ... 23 .It Ar w day of week, range 0 ... 6, 0 = Sunday .It Ar dd day of month, range 1 ... 31, or the letter .Ql L or .Ql l to specify the last day of the month. .El .Pp Some examples: .Pp .Bl -tag -width Ds -compact -offset indent .It Li $D0 rotate every night at midnight .It Li $D23 rotate every day at 23:00 hr .It Li $W0D23 rotate every week on Sunday at 23:00 hr .It Li $W5D16 rotate every week on Friday at 16:00 hr .It Li $MLD0 rotate at the last day of every month at midnight .It Li $M5D6 rotate on every 5th day of month at 6:00 hr .El .It Ar flags This field specifies any special processing that is required. These flags are parsed in a case insensitive manner. Individual flags and their meanings: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Ic \- This flag means nothing \(em it is used as a spacer when no flags are set. .It Ic b The file is a binary file or is not in .Xr syslogd 8 format: the ASCII message which .Nm inserts to indicate that the logs have been trimmed should not be included. .It Ic c Create an empty log file if none currently exists. .It Ic e Do not rotate log file with zero size (empty). This flag is mostly usable in conjunction with .Ic b flag that prevents .Nm from inserting an ASCII informational message. .It Ic j Archived log files should be compressed with .Xr bzip2 1 to save space. .It Ic n No signal should be sent when the log is trimmed. .It Ic p The first historical log file (i.e. the historical log file with the suffix .Ql \.0 ) should not be compressed. .It Ic x Archived log files should be compressed with .Xr xz 1 to save space. .It Ic z Archived log files should be compressed with .Xr gzip 1 to save space. .El .It Ar path_to_pid_file This optional field specifies the file name to read to find the daemon process id. If this field is missing, it defaults to the .Pa /var/run/syslogd.pid file. A signal of type .Ar sigtype is sent to the process id contained in this .Ar path_to_pid_file file. This field must start with .Ql / in order to be recognized properly. .It Ar sigtype This optional field specifies the type of signal to be sent to the daemon process. This may be a numeric or symbolic value. By default a .Dv SIGHUP (hang-up) will be sent. .El .Sh OPTIONS The following options can be used with newsyslog: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fl F Force trimming of 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. .It Fl f Ar config_file Use .Ar config_file instead of .Pa /etc/newsyslog.conf as the configuration file. .It Fl n Do not trim the logs, but print out what would be done if this option were not specified: .Fl n implies .Fl v . .It Fl r Remove the restriction that .Nm must be running as root. When running as a regular user, .Nm will not be able to send a .Dv SIGHUP signal to .Xr syslogd 8 , so this option should be used only when debugging or trimming user generated logs. .It Fl s Do not signal daemon processes. .It Fl v Run in verbose mode. In this mode each action that is taken will be printed. .El .Pp If additional command line arguments are given, .Nm will only examine log files that match those arguments; otherwise, it will examine all files listed in the configuration file. .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width /etc/newsyslog.confxxxx -compact .It Pa /etc/newsyslog.conf .Nm configuration file. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr bzip2 1 , .Xr gzip 1 , .Xr syslog 3 , .Xr syslogd 8