NEWSYSLOG(8) | System Manager's Manual | NEWSYSLOG(8) |
newsyslog
—
maintain system log files to manageable sizes
newsyslog |
[-CFNnrsv ] [-R
tagname] [-a
directory] [-d
directory] [-f
config_file] [file ...] |
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:
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.
The following options can be used with
newsyslog
:
-f
config_filenewsyslog
to use
config_file instead of
/etc/newsyslog.conf and
/etc/newsyslog.d/*.conf for its configuration
file.-a
directorynewsyslog
is run.-d
directory-a
option is unaffected.-v
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
newsyslog
not to trim the logs, but to print
out what it would do if this option were not specified.-r
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.-s
newsyslog
should not send any signals
to any daemon processes that it would normally signal when rotating a log
file. For any log file which is rotated, this option will usually also
mean the rotated log file will not be compressed if there is a daemon
which would have been signalled without this option. However, this option
is most likely to be useful when specified with the
-R
option, and in that case the compression will
be done.-C
newsyslog
will create any
log files which do not exist, and which have the C flag
specified in their config file entry. If specified multiple times, then
newsyslog
will create all log files which do not
already exist. If log files are given on the command-line, then the
-C
or -CC
will only apply
to those specific log files.-F
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.-N
-C
or -CC
options when
creating log files is the only objective.-R
tagnamenewsyslog
should rotate a given list
of files, even if trim conditions are not met for those files. The
tagname is only used in the messages written to the
log files which are rotated. This differs from the
-F
option in that one or more log files must also
be specified, so that newsyslog
will only operate
on those specific files. This option is mainly intended for the daemons or
programs which write some log files, and want to trigger a rotate based on
their own criteria. With this option they can execute
newsyslog
to trigger the rotate when they want it
to happen, and still give the system administrator a way to specify the
rules of rotation (such as how many backup copies are kept, and what kind
of compression is done). When a daemon does execute
newsyslog
with the -R
option, it should make sure all of the log files are closed before calling
newsyslog
, and then it should re-open the files
after newsyslog
returns. Usually the calling
process will also want to specify the -s
option,
so newsyslog
will not send a signal to the very
process which called it to force the rotate. Skipping the signal step will
also mean that newsyslog
will return faster, since
newsyslog
normally waits a few seconds after any
signal that is sent.If additional command line arguments are given,
newsyslog
will only examine log files that match
those arguments; otherwise, it will examine all files listed in the
configuration file(s).
newsyslog
configuration filenewsyslog
configuration directoryPrevious 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.
The newsyslog
utility originated from
NetBSD and first appeared in
FreeBSD 2.2.
Theodore Ts'o, MIT Project Athena
Copyright 1987, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
bzip2(1), gzip(1), syslog(3), newsyslog.conf(5), chown(8), syslogd(8)
Does not yet automatically read the logs to find security breaches.
February 24, 2005 | macOS 14.6 |