On Monday 09 Dec 2002 2:01 am, Stephen Kuhn wrote: > On Mon, 2002-12-09 at 12:43, Angus Auld wrote: > > Greetings, another newbie question. :-) > > This is something I have been wondering about for awhile. Is there a > > program on my Mdk system that looks after log files? To keep them from > > getting too large? Or is there a ceiling on how big these files can get? > > Seems like wasted space after a while. > > > > My /var/log/messages & /var/log/syslog are 4.5 and 4.8mb respectively. > > They have messages going back to my install date on Oct 4. Will these > > files just continue to grow? I know, dumb question. But, inquiring minds > > want to know. > > > > TIA for any feedback. :-) > > > > --Angus > > There is a "cap" on the logs, yes. The cap is directly determined by the > amount of free space that you have left on your drive. Once the logfiles > grow to such an extent as to compromise the available free space, the > syslog daemon will then begin to delete unwanted binaries from your > system, along with other unused and unproductive things like bookmarks, > mp3 files, avi's, mpeg's, wallpapers, gif's, jpg's, user accounts and > etc. There does come a time when the log files have grown so large that > the actual OS itself, if it can't be compressed and run in RAM, is > thence deleted itself, and upon next boot, you are notified that you > should have maintained your log files from the very beginning by > deleting the unwanted logfiles, or out of date log files. At that point, > you have to completely reinstall and then configure your log files > properly.
There is a daemon that will look after logfiles. It is called logrotate and will run as a cron job. When the log files reach a certain age or size they are compressed as a .gz compressed file. The system will keep up to 4 compressed log files, and then discard the oldest. Every time an RPM is installed which creates logs the logrotate config file is updated to manage the log files. So long as logrote is running you will never suffer an issue with log files. See man logrotate derek
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