On 12/3/2010 5:25 PM, Steve Simmons wrote: > On Dec 3, 2010, at 10:38 AM, Jeffrey Altman wrote: > >> At the very least I believe that we need to implement an internal log >> rollover mechanism based on either max size or max time with a max >> number of old logs to be maintained. Implementing this should not be >> overly complicated if we agree that this internal file logging is not >> meant to replace full featured log rotation tool chains. > > > Sorry, Jeff, but I must disagree strongly with 'with a max number of old logs > to be maintained.' That's the sort of thing that's best managed with an > external tool to do those sorts of renames, what naming strategy to use, etc.
The problem that I am attempting to address with that requirement is disks filling on machines that are much less managed then your environment. > I even mildly disagree with 'internal log rollover mechanism based on either > max size or max time.' My desire for better AFS logfile rotation isn't based > on a problem with them getting too big. Mine is partly based on AFS' > predeliction for renaming files to '.old' and thereby wiping out log files > when you get multiple restarts close together, and partly on the inability to > sanely rotate and archive those files without having to restart AFS (and yes, > I now see that some of that can be done semi-automagically). Having the > individual files get too big is simply not an issue for us. If others' milage > varies, they should speak up. But in general, all the right tools exist > (logfile watchers and renamers) to do that job. I don't think we should try > and build such into AFS. OpenAFS is not just used in large organizations and it needs to be easy to deploy for small home/business deployments without requiring that there be a dedicated logging infrastructure. > In summary, all the really significant problems with AFS log files are solved > by a close/reopen on HUP or other signal we choose. It's an simple solution, > it dovetails very nicely with existing tools and with relatively simple cron > scripts, "it's the UNIX way", and it's probably easy to implement. It doesn't > break 'bos *log*', either. It's a win. Ah yes "the Unix way". OpenAFS is not a Unix only distributed file system. It was specifically designed to be cross platform and while there are no functioning Windows based servers in deployment at the moment from OpenAFS, a significant amount of effort has been put into making that be a possibility in the near future. OpenAFS needs to work well on Unix. To that extent I agree that the default logging option on Unix should be syslog. However, for those sites that prefer to work with the existing file based logs or for platforms that do not have syslog, we need to have a solution that does not result in the disk becoming full as a result of the user failing to delete all old files. > The problem with .old logs getting overwritten when a restart occurs is one I > can fix in cron venues. Mind you, with log open/close on hup I see no need > for the 'feature' of renaming FooLog to FooLog.old on any restart. Instead we > should just keep appending to the existing logfile if it's already there.
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