file
...
]
.0
''
has
the last period's logs in it,
``logfile
.1
''
has the next to last
period's logs in it and so on, up to a user-specified number of
archived logs.
Optionally the archived logs can be compressed to save
space.
A log can be archived for three reasons:
The granularity of newsyslog is dependent on how often it is scheduled to run by cron(8). It is recommended that newsyslog be run once hourly.
When starting up,
newsyslog
reads in a configuration file to determine which logs may potentially
be archived.
By default, this configuration file is
/etc/newsyslog.conf
.
Each line of the file contains information about a particular log file
that should be handled by
.
Each line has six mandatory fields and three optional fields, with
whitespace separating each field.
Blank lines or lines beginning with
``#''
are ignored.
The fields of the configuration file are as
follows:
/etc/passwd
or
/etc/group
.
For backward compatibility,
``.''
is usable in lieu of
``:'',
however use of this feature is discouraged.
@`.blm Pp
-sign '
and a time in a restricted
ISO 8601
format or by an
$`.blm Pp
-sign '
and a time specification for logfile rotation at a fixed time once
per day, per week or per month.
If a time is specified, the log file will only be trimmed if newsyslog is run within one hour of the specified time. If an interval is specified, the log file will be trimmed if that many hours have passed since the last rotation. When both a time and an interval are specified, the log will be trimmed if either condition is met.
There is no provision for specification of a timezone. There is little point in specifying an explicit minutes or seconds component in the current implementation, since the only comparison is `within the hour'.
ISO 8601 restricted time format
The lead-in character for a restricted
ISO 8601
time is
an
@`.blm Pp
-sign. '
The particular format of the time in restricted
ISO 8601
is:
]
yy
]
mm
]
dd
]
[T
[hh
[mm
[ss
]
]
]
]
[[[[[cc.]
Optional date fields default to the appropriate component of the
current date; optional time fields default to midnight; hence if today
is January 22, 1999, the following date specifications are all
equivalent:
19990122T000000
'
990122T000000
'
0122T000000
'
22T000000
'
T000000
'
T0000
'
T00
'
22T
'
T
'
'
Day, week and month time format
The lead-in character for day, week and month specification is a
$`.blm Pp
-sign. '
The particular format of day, week and month specification is:
[Dhh,]
[Dhh
]
[Ww]
and
[Dhh
]
[Mdd]
respectively.
Optional time fields default to midnight.
The ranges for day and hour specifications are:
Some examples:
/var/run/syslogd.pid
file.
A signal of type
sigtype
is sent to the process id contained in this
path_to_pid_file
file.
This field must start with
`/'
in order to be recognized properly.
/etc/newsyslog.conf
as the configuration file.
If additional command line arguments are given, newsyslog will only examine log files that match those arguments; otherwise, it will examine all files listed in the configuration file.
/etc/newsyslog.conf