how to limit the total size of log files managed by syslog?

Question

How can I limit the total size of log files that are managed by syslog? The oldest archived log files should probably be removed when this size limit (quota) is exceeded.

Some of the log files are customized files specified by LOG_LOCALn, but I guess this doesn't matter regarding the quota issue.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The Linux utility logrotate renames and reuses system error log files on a periodic basis so that they don't occupy excessive disk space. Linux system stores all the relevant information regarding this into the file /etc/logrotate.conf

There are number of attributes which help us to manage the log size. Please read the manual("man logrotate") before doing anything. On my machine this file looks as follows:

# see "man logrotate" for details
# rotate log files weekly
weekly

# keep 4 weeks worth of backlogs
rotate 4

# create new (empty) log files after rotating old ones
create

# uncomment this if you want your log files compressed
#compress

# packages drop log rotation information into this directory
include /etc/logrotate.d

# no packages own wtmp, or btmp -- we'll rotate them here
/var/log/wtmp {
    missingok
    monthly
    create 0664 root utmp
    rotate 1
}

/var/log/btmp {
    missingok
    monthly
    create 0660 root utmp
    rotate 1
}

# system-specific logs may be configured here

As we can see that log files would be rotated on weekly basis.This may be changed to daily basis.The compress is not enabled on my machine. This may be enabled if you want to make log file size smaller. There is excellent article which you may want to refer for the complete understanding this topic.