Provided by: cronolog_1.6.2+rpk-3_amd64 bug

NAME

       cronolog - write log messages to log files named according to a template

SYNOPSIS

       cronolog [OPTION]... template

DESCRIPTION

       cronolog  is  a simple program that reads log messages from its input and writes them to a
       set of output files, the names of which are constructed using  template  and  the  current
       date  and  time.  The template uses the same format specifiers as the Unix date(1) command
       (which are the same as the standard C strftime library function).

       Before writing a message cronolog checks the time to see whether the current log  file  is
       still  valid and if not it closes the current file, expands the template using the current
       date and time to  generate  a  new  file  name,  opens  the  new  file  (creating  missing
       directories  on the path of the new log file as needed unless the program is compiled with
       -DDONT_CREATE_SUBDIRS) and calculates the time at which the new file will become invalid.

       cronolog is intended to be used in conjunction with a Web server, such as Apache to  split
       the  access  log  into  daily  or  monthly  logs.   For  example  the Apache configuration
       directives:

               TransferLog "|/usr/bin/cronolog /www/logs/%Y/%m/%d/access.log"
               ErrorLog    "|/usr/bin/cronolog /www/logs/%Y/%m/%d/errors.log"

       would instruct Apache to pipe its access and error log messages into  separate  copies  of
       cronolog, which would create new log files each day in a directory hierarchy structured by
       date, i.e. on 31 December 1996 messages would be written to

               /www/logs/1996/12/31/access.log
               /www/logs/1996/12/31/errors.log

       after midnight the files

               /www/logs/1997/01/01/access.log
               /www/logs/1997/01/01/errors.log

       would be used, with the directories 1997, 1997/01 and 1997/01/01 being created if they did
       not  already  exist.  (Note that prior to version 1.2 Apache did not allow a program to be
       specified as the argument of the ErrorLog directive.)

Options

       cronolog accepts the following options and arguments:

       -H NAME

       --hardlink=NAME
              maintain a hard link from NAME to the current log file.

       -S NAME

       --symlink=NAME

       -l NAME

       --link=NAME
              maintain a symbolic link from NAME to the current log file.

       -P NAME

       --prev-simlink=NAME
              maintain a symbolic link from NAME to the previous log  file.   Requires  that  the
              --symlink  option  is  specified,  as cronolog renames the current link to the name
              specified for the previous link.

       -h

       --help print a help message and then exit.

       -p PERIOD

       --period=PERIOD
              specifies the period explicitly as an optional digit  string  followed  by  one  of
              units: seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks or months.  The count cannot be greater
              than the number of units in the next larger unit,  i.e.  you  cannot  specify  "120
              minutes", and for seconds, minutes and hours the count must be a factor of the next
              higher unit, i.e you can specify 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes but not
              say 7 minutes.

       -d PERIOD

       --delay=PERIOD
              specifies  the  delay  from  the  start of the period before the log file is rolled
              over.  For example specifying (explicitly or implicitly) a period of 15 minutes and
              a  delay  of  5 minutes results in the log files being rotated at five past, twenty
              past, twentyfive to and ten to each hour.   The delay cannot  be  longer  than  the
              period.

       -o

       --once-only
              create single output log from template, which is not rotated.

       -x FILE

       --debug=FILE
              write  debug messages to FILE or to the standard error stream if FILE is "-".  (See
              the README file for more details.)

       -s TIME

       --start-time=TIME
              pretend that the starting time is TIME (for debugging purposes).   TIME  should  be
              something  like  DD  MONTH  YYYY  HH:MM:SS  (the  day and month are reversed if the
              american option is specified).  If the seconds are omitted then they are  taken  as
              zero  and  if  the  hours  and minutes are omitted then the time of day is taken as
              00:00:00 (i.e. midnight).  The day, month and year  can  be  separated  by  spaces,
              hyphens (-) or solidi (/).

       -a

       --american
              Interprete the date part of the starting time the American way (month then day).

       -e

       --european
              Interprete  the  date  part of the starting time the European way (day then month).
              This is the default.

       -v

       --version
              print version information and exit.

Template format

       Each character in the template represents a character in the expanded filename, except for
       date and time format specifiers, which are replaced by their expansion.  Format specifiers
       consist of a `%' followed by one of the following characters:

       %      a literal % character

       n      a new-line character

       t      a horizontal tab character

       Time fields:

       H      hour (00..23)

       I      hour (01..12)

       p      the locale's AM or PM indicator

       M      minute (00..59)

       S      second (00..61, which allows for leap seconds)

       X      the locale's time representation (e.g.: "15:12:47")

       Z      time zone (e.g. GMT), or nothing if the time zone cannot be determined

       Date fields:

       a      the locale's abbreviated weekday name (e.g.: Sun..Sat)

       A      the locale's full weekday name (e.g.: Sunday .. Saturday)

       b      the locale's abbreviated month name (e.g.: Jan .. Dec)

       B      the locale's full month name, (e.g.: January .. December)

       c      the locale's date and time (e.g.: "Sun Dec 15 14:12:47 GMT 1996")

       d      day of month (01 .. 31)

       j      day of year (001 .. 366)

       m      month (01 .. 12)

       U      week of the year with Sunday as first day of week (00..53, where week 1 is the week
              containing the first Sunday of the year)

       W      week of the year with Monday as first day of week (00..53, where week 1 is the week
              containing the first Monday of the year)

       w      day of week (0 .. 6, where 0 corresponds to Sunday)

       x      locale's date representation (e.g. today in April in Britain: "13/04/97")

       y      year without the century (00 .. 99)

       Y      year with the century (1970 .. 2038)

       Other specifiers may be available depending on  the  C  library's  implementation  of  the
       strftime function.

SEE ALSO

       apache(1m) date(1) strftime(3) environ(5)

       More information and the latest version of cronolog can be obtained from

               http://www.ford-mason.co.uk/resources/cronolog/

       If  you have any suggestions, bug reports, fixes, or enhancements, please mail them to the
       author.

   More about Apache
       Documentation for the Apache http server is available from

               http://www.apache.org

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       The functionality of cronolog could be built into Apache,  thus  saving  the  overhead  of
       having  a  process per log stream and that of transferring data from the server process to
       the cronolog process.  The main complication is  handling  the  case  where  multiple  log
       streams  are  written  to  the  same  file (template), for example where different virtual
       servers write to the same set of log files.

AUTHOR

       Andrew Ford <A.Ford@ford-mason.co.uk>

       cronolog is based on a program called rotatelogs by Ben Laurie, which is packaged with the
       Apache web server.

       The symbolic link option was suggested by Juergen Lesny.

                                            March 1998                               cronolog(1m)