Provided by: apache2-utils_2.4.52-1ubuntu4.12_amd64 
NAME
rotatelogs - Piped logging program to rotate Apache logs
SYNOPSIS
rotatelogs [ -l ] [ -L linkname ] [ -p program ] [ -f ] [ -D ] [ -t ] [ -v ] [ -e ] [ -c ]
[ -n number-of-files ] logfile rotationtime|filesize(B|K|M|G) [ 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.
-L linkname
-p program
If given, rotatelogs will execute the specified program every time a new log file
is opened. The filename of the newly opened file is passed as the first argument to
the program. If executing after a rotation, the old log file is passed as the
second argument. rotatelogs does not wait for the specified program to terminate
before continuing to operate, and will not log any error code returned on
termination. The spawned program uses the same stdin, stdout, and stderr as
rotatelogs itself, and also inherits the environment.
-f Causes the logfile to be opened immediately, as soon as rotatelogs 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)
-D Creates the parent directories of the path that the log file will be placed in if
they do not already exist. This allows strftime(3) formatting to be used in the
path and not just the filename.
-t Causes the logfile to be truncated instead of rotated. This is useful when a log is
processed in real time by a command like tail, and there is no need for archived
data. No suffix will be added to the filename, however format strings containing
'%' characters will be respected.
-v Produce verbose output on STDERR. The output contains the result of the
configuration parsing, and all file open and close actions.
-e Echo logs through to stdout. Useful when logs need to be further processed in real
time by a further tool in the chain.
-c Create log file for each interval, even if empty.
-n number-of-files
Use a circular list of filenames without timestamps. With -n 3, the series of log
files opened would be "logfile", "logfile.1", "logfile.2", then overwriting
"logfile". Available in 2.4.5 and later.
logfile
rotationtime
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.)
filesize(B|K|M|G)
The maximum file size in followed by exactly one of the letters B (Bytes), K
(KBytes), M (MBytes) or G (GBytes). .PP When time and size are specified, the size
must be given after the time. Rotation will occur whenever either time or size
limits are reached.
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/log/logfile 86400" common
This creates the files /var/log/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/log/logfile.%Y.%m.%d 86400" common
This creates the files /var/log/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/log/logfile 5M" common
This configuration will rotate the logfile whenever it reaches a size of 5 megabytes.
ErrorLog "|bin/rotatelogs /var/log/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.
CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs -t /var/log/logfile 86400" common
This creates the file /var/log/logfile, truncating the file at startup and then truncating
the file once per day. It is expected in this scenario that a separate process (such as
tail) would process the file in real time.
PORTABILITY
The following logfile format string substitutions should be supported by all strftime(3)
implementations, see the strftime(3) man page for library-specific extensions.
• %A - full weekday name (localized)
• %a - 3-character weekday name (localized)
• %B - full month name (localized)
• %b - 3-character month name (localized)
• %c - date and time (localized)
• %d - 2-digit day of month
• %H - 2-digit hour (24 hour clock)
• %I - 2-digit hour (12 hour clock)
• %j - 3-digit day of year
• %M - 2-digit minute
• %m - 2-digit month
• %p - am/pm of 12 hour clock (localized)
• %S - 2-digit second
• %U - 2-digit week of year (Sunday first day of week)
• %W - 2-digit week of year (Monday first day of week)
• %w - 1-digit weekday (Sunday first day of week)
• %X - time (localized)
• %x - date (localized)
• %Y - 4-digit year
• %y - 2-digit year
• %Z - time zone name
• %% - literal `%'