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<manualpage metafile="rotatelogs.xml.meta">
<parentdocument href="./">Programs</parentdocument>

  <title>rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs</title>

<summary>
     <p><code>rotatelogs</code> 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.</p>
</summary>

<section id="synopsis"><title>Synopsis</title>

     <p><code><strong>rotatelogs</strong>
     [ -<strong>l</strong> ]
     [ -<strong>f</strong> ]
     <var>logfile</var>
     <var>rotationtime</var>|<var>filesize</var>M 
     [ <var>offset</var> ]</code></p>
</section>

<section id="options"><title>Options</title>

<dl>

<dt><code>-l</code></dt>
<dd>Causes the use of local time rather than GMT as the base for the
interval or for <code>strftime(3)</code> formatting with size-based 
rotation.  Note that using <code>-l</code> in an environment which
changes the GMT offset (such as for BST or DST) can lead to unpredictable
results!</dd>

<dt><code>-f</code></dt>
<dd>Causes the logfile to be opened immediately, as soon as
<code>rotatelogs</code> starts, instead of waiting for the
first logfile 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).
<em>Available in version 2.2.9 and later.</em></dd>

<dt><code><var>logfile</var></code></dt>

<dd><p>The path plus basename of the logfile.  If <var>logfile</var>
includes any '%' characters, it is treated as a format string for
<code>strftime(3)</code>.  Otherwise, the suffix
<var>.nnnnnnnnnn</var> 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 
specified, the hour, minute, and second fields created from the
<code>strftime(3)</code> format will all be zero, referring to the
beginning of the current 24-hour period (midnight).</p>
<p>When using <code>strftime(3)</code> filename formatting,
be sure the log file format has enough granularity to produce
a different file name each time the logs are rotated.  Otherwise
rotation will overwrite the same file instead of starting a new
one.  For example, if <var>logfile</var> was 
<code>/var/logs/errorlog.%Y-%m-%d</code> with log rotation at 5
megabytes, but 5 megabytes was reached twice in the same day, the
same log file name would be produced and log rotation would keep
writing to the same file.</p>
</dd>

<dt><code><var>rotationtime</var></code></dt>

<dd>The time between log file rotations in seconds.  The rotation
occurs at the beginning of this interval.  For example, 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.)</dd>

<dt><code><var>filesize</var>M</code></dt>

<dd>The maximum file size in megabytes followed by the letter
<code>M</code> to specify size rather than time.</dd>

<dt><code><var>offset</var></code></dt>

<dd>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 <code>-300</code> for this argument.
In most cases, <code>-l</code> should be used instead of specifying
an offset.</dd>

</dl>
</section>

<section id="examples"><title>Examples</title>

<example>
     CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/logs/logfile 86400" common
</example>
	 
     <p>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.</p>

<example>
     CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -l /var/logs/logfile.%Y.%m.%d 86400" common
</example>
	 
     <p>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.</p>

<example>
     CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/logs/logfile 5M" common
</example>

     <p>This configuration will rotate the logfile whenever it reaches
     a size of 5 megabytes.</p>

<example>
     ErrorLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/logs/errorlog.%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M_%S 5M"
</example>
     <p>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
     <code>errorlog.YYYY-mm-dd-HH_MM_SS</code>.</p>
 
</section>

<section id="portability"><title>Portability</title>

<p>The following logfile format string substitutions should be
supported by all <code>strftime(3)</code> implementations, see
the <code>strftime(3)</code> man page for library-specific
extensions.</p>

<table border="1" style="zebra">
<tr><td><code>%A</code></td><td>full weekday name (localized)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%a</code></td><td>3-character weekday name (localized)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%B</code></td><td>full month name (localized)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%b</code></td><td>3-character month name (localized)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%c</code></td><td>date and time (localized)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%d</code></td><td>2-digit day of month</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%H</code></td><td>2-digit hour (24 hour clock)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%I</code></td><td>2-digit hour (12 hour clock)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%j</code></td><td>3-digit day of year</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%M</code></td><td>2-digit minute</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%m</code></td><td>2-digit month</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%p</code></td><td>am/pm of 12 hour clock (localized)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%S</code></td><td>2-digit second</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%U</code></td><td>2-digit week of year 
(Sunday first day of week)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%W</code></td><td>2-digit week of year 
(Monday first day of week)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%w</code></td><td>1-digit weekday 
(Sunday first day of week)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%X</code></td><td>time (localized)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%x</code></td><td>date (localized)</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%Y</code></td><td>4-digit year</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%y</code></td><td>2-digit year</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%Z</code></td><td>time zone name</td></tr>
<tr><td><code>%%</code></td><td>literal `%'</td></tr>
</table>

</section>
</manualpage>
