| 1 | .TH NEWSYSLOG 8 "November 30, 1995" "MIT Athena" |
|---|
| 2 | .SH NAME |
|---|
| 3 | newsyslog \- maintain system log files to manageable sizes |
|---|
| 4 | .SH SYNOPSIS |
|---|
| 5 | .B /etc/athena/newsyslog |
|---|
| 6 | .RB [ \-vnr ] |
|---|
| 7 | [\fB\-f \fIconfig-file\fR] [\fB\-t \fIsleep\fR] |
|---|
| 8 | .SH DESCRIPTION |
|---|
| 9 | .I Newsyslog |
|---|
| 10 | is a program that should be scheduled to run periodically by |
|---|
| 11 | .IR crontab . |
|---|
| 12 | When it is executed, it archives and processes log files if necessary. |
|---|
| 13 | Processes writing to the log file (usually |
|---|
| 14 | .IR syslogd ) |
|---|
| 15 | are signalled so they can start using the new log file. |
|---|
| 16 | .PP |
|---|
| 17 | There are two possible conditions for |
|---|
| 18 | .I newsyslog |
|---|
| 19 | to turn over the log file: the file may have grown bigger than a |
|---|
| 20 | preset size in kilobytes, or a preset number of hours may have elapsed |
|---|
| 21 | since the last log archive. The granularity of |
|---|
| 22 | .I newsyslog |
|---|
| 23 | is dependent on how often it is scheduled to run in crontab. Since |
|---|
| 24 | the program is quite fast, it may be scheduled to run every hour |
|---|
| 25 | without any ill effects. |
|---|
| 26 | .PP |
|---|
| 27 | If a log file is determined to require archiving, |
|---|
| 28 | .I newsyslog |
|---|
| 29 | usually rearranges the files so that ``logfile'' is empty, |
|---|
| 30 | ``logfile.0'' has the last period's logs in it, ``logfile.1'' has the |
|---|
| 31 | next to last period's logs in it, and so on, up to a user-specified |
|---|
| 32 | number of archived logs. |
|---|
| 33 | If the log files are to be archived indefinitely, it is sometimes more |
|---|
| 34 | convenient to label the filenames with the date when the file was |
|---|
| 35 | turned over. In this case, the files will be named |
|---|
| 36 | ``logfile.YYYYMMDD'' instead of ``logfile.N'', but the number of |
|---|
| 37 | log files stored can still be specified by the user. |
|---|
| 38 | .PP |
|---|
| 39 | When starting up, |
|---|
| 40 | .I newsyslog |
|---|
| 41 | reads in a configuration file to determine which logs should be looked |
|---|
| 42 | at. By default, this configuration file is |
|---|
| 43 | .IR /etc/athena/newsyslog.conf . |
|---|
| 44 | The syntax of this file is described in a separate manpage. |
|---|
| 45 | .PP |
|---|
| 46 | .SH OPTIONS |
|---|
| 47 | The following options can be used with newsyslog: |
|---|
| 48 | .TP |
|---|
| 49 | .B \-f \fIconfig-file |
|---|
| 50 | instructs newsyslog to use |
|---|
| 51 | .I config-file |
|---|
| 52 | instead of /etc/athena/newsyslog.conf for its configuration file. |
|---|
| 53 | .TP |
|---|
| 54 | .B \-t \fIsleep |
|---|
| 55 | tells newsyslog to sleep for the specified number of seconds after |
|---|
| 56 | sending a signal to a process, in order to give it time to clean up. |
|---|
| 57 | (The default is 1.) |
|---|
| 58 | .TP |
|---|
| 59 | .B \-v |
|---|
| 60 | places |
|---|
| 61 | .I newsyslog |
|---|
| 62 | in verbose mode. In this mode it will print out each log and its |
|---|
| 63 | reasons for either trimming that log or skipping it. |
|---|
| 64 | .TP |
|---|
| 65 | .B \-n |
|---|
| 66 | causes |
|---|
| 67 | .I newsyslog |
|---|
| 68 | not to trim the logs, but to print out what it would do if this option |
|---|
| 69 | were not specified. |
|---|
| 70 | .TP |
|---|
| 71 | .B \-r |
|---|
| 72 | removes the restriction that |
|---|
| 73 | .I newsyslog |
|---|
| 74 | must be running as root. Of course, |
|---|
| 75 | .I newsyslog |
|---|
| 76 | will not be able to send a signal to the processes controlling |
|---|
| 77 | the log files (such as |
|---|
| 78 | .IR syslogd ) |
|---|
| 79 | if they were started by a different user, so this option is probably |
|---|
| 80 | most useful in debugging. |
|---|
| 81 | .SH FILES |
|---|
| 82 | /etc/athena/newsyslog.conf |
|---|
| 83 | .SH BUGS |
|---|
| 84 | Doesn't yet automatically read the logs to find security breaches. |
|---|
| 85 | .SH AUTHORS |
|---|
| 86 | Newsyslog was written by Theodore Ts'o, MIT Project Athena. |
|---|
| 87 | .br |
|---|
| 88 | bert Dvornik, MIT IS/DCNS-Dev, added some new features. |
|---|
| 89 | .br |
|---|
| 90 | Copyright 1987,1995 Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
|---|
| 91 | .SH "SEE ALSO" |
|---|
| 92 | newsyslog.conf(5), syslogd(8), compress(1) |
|---|
