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NEWSYSLOG.CONF(5) |
FreeBSD File Formats Manual |
NEWSYSLOG.CONF(5) |
The newsyslog.conf file is used to set log file rotation
configuration for the
newsyslog(8)
utility. Configuration may designate that logs are rotated based on size, last
rotation time, or time of day. The newsyslog.conf file
can also be used to designate secure permissions to log files at rotation
time. During initialization,
newsyslog(8)
reads a configuration file, normally
/etc/newsyslog.conf, to determine which logs may
potentially be rotated and archived. Each line has five mandatory fields and
four optional fields, separated with whitespace. Blank lines or lines
beginning with ‘# ’ are ignored. If
‘# ’ is placed in the middle of the line,
the ‘# ’ character and the rest of the
line after it is ignored. To prevent special meaning, the
‘# ’ character may be escaped with
‘\ ’; in this case preceding
‘\ ’ is removed and
‘# ’ is treated as an ordinary character.
The fields of the configuration file are as follows:
- logfile_name
- Name of the system log file to be archived, or one of the literal strings
“⟨
default ⟩”, or
“⟨include ⟩”. The
special default entry will only be used if a log file name is given as a
command line argument to
newsyslog(8),
and if that log file name is not matched by any other line in the
configuration file. The include entry is used to include other
configuration files and supports globbing.
- owner:group
- This optional field specifies the owner and group for the archive file.
The ‘
: ’ is essential regardless if
the owner or group field is
left blank or contains a value. The field may be numeric, or a name which
is present in /etc/passwd or
/etc/group.
- mode
- Specify the file mode of the log file and archives. Valid mode bits are
0666 . (That is, read and write permissions for the
rotated log may be specified for the owner, group, and others.) All other
mode bits are ignored.
- count
- Specify the maximum number of archive files which may exist. This does not
consider the current log file.
- size
- When the size of the log file reaches size in
kilobytes, the log file will be trimmed as described above. If this field
contains an asterisk (‘
* ’), the log
file will not be trimmed based on size.
- when
- The when field may consist of an interval, a
specific time, or both. If the when field contains
an asterisk (‘
* ’), log rotation will
solely depend on the contents of the size field.
Otherwise, the when field consists of an optional
interval in hours, usually followed by an
‘@ ’-sign and
a time in restricted ISO 8601 format. Additionally, the format may also be
constructed with a ‘$ ’ sign along
with a rotation time specification of once a day, once a week, or once a
month.
Time based trimming happens only if
newsyslog(8)
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
then both conditions must be satisfied for the rotation to take
place.
There is no provision for the 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
‘@ ’ sign. The particular format of
the time in restricted ISO 8601 is:
[[[[[cc]yy]mm]dd][T [hh[mm[ss]]]]].
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 ‘$ ’ sign. The particular
format of day, week, and month specification is:
[D hh],
[W w[D hh]],
and
[M dd[D hh]],
respectively. Optional time fields default to midnight. The ranges for
day and hour specifications are:
- hh
- hours, range 0..23
- w
- day of week, range 0..6, 0 = Sunday
- dd
- day of month, range 1..31, or one of the letters
‘
L ’ or
‘l ’ to specify the last day of
the month.
Some examples:
$D0
- rotate every night at midnight (same as
@T00 )
$D23
- rotate every day at 23:00 (same as
@T23 )
$W0D23
- rotate every week on Sunday at 23:00
$W5D16
- rotate every week on Friday at 16:00
$M1D0
- rotate at the first day of every month at midnight (i.e., the start of
the day; same as
@01T00 )
$M5D6
- rotate on every fifth day of month at 6:00 (same as
@05T06 )
- flags
- This optional field is made up of one or more characters that specify any
special processing to be done for the log files matched by this line. The
following are valid flags:
B
- indicates that the log file is a binary file, or has some special
format. Usually
newsyslog(8)
inserts an ASCII message into a log file during rotation. This message
is used to indicate when, and sometimes why the log file was rotated.
If
B is specified, then that informational
message will not be inserted into the log file.
C
- indicates that the log file should be created if it does not already
exist, and if the
-C option was also specified
on the command line.
D
- indicates that
newsyslog(8)
should set the
UF_NODUMP flag when creating a
new version of this log file. This option would affect how the
dump(8)
command treats the log file when making a file system backup.
E
- indicates that the log file should not be rotated when its size is
zero. The
E flag is mostly useful in
conjunction with B flag to prevent
newsyslog(8)
from inserting an informational ASCII message into the new file.
G
- indicates that the specified logfile_name is a
shell pattern, and that
newsyslog(8)
should archive all filenames matching that pattern using the other
options on this line. See
glob(3)
for details on syntax and matching rules.
J
- indicates that
newsyslog(8)
should attempt to save disk space by compressing the rotated log file
using
bzip2(1).
N
- indicates that there is no process which needs to be signaled when
this log file is rotated.
p
- indicates that the zero-th rotated file should not be compressed.
R
- if this flag is set the
newsyslog(8)
will run shell command defined in
path_to_pid_cmd_file after rotation instead of
trying to send signal to a process id stored in the file.
T
- if this flag is set the informational rotation message written to the
log file will be in the format specified by RFC5424. Normally, the
rotation message is written in the traditional (RFC3164) syslog
format.
U
- indicates that the file specified by
path_to_pid_cmd_file will contain the ID for a
process group instead of a process. This option also requires that the
first line in that file be a negative value to distinguish it from a
process ID.
X
- indicates that
newsyslog(8)
should attempt to save disk space by compressing the rotated log file
using
xz(1).
Y
- indicates that
newsyslog(8)
should attempt to save disk space by compressing the rotated log file
using
zstd(1).
Z
- indicates that
newsyslog(8)
should attempt to save disk space by compressing the rotated log file
using
gzip(1).
-
- a minus sign will not cause any special processing, but it can be used
as a placeholder to create a flags field when
you need to specify any of the following fields.
- path_to_pid_cmd_file
- This optional field specifies the file name containing a daemon's process
ID or to find a group process ID if the
U flag was
specified. If this field is present, a signal is
sent to the process ID contained in this file. If this field is not
present and the N flag has not been specified,
then a SIGHUP signal will be sent to
syslogd(8)
or to the process id found in the file specified by
newsyslog(8)'s
-S switch. This field must start with
‘/ ’ in order to be recognized
properly. When used with the R flag, the file is
treated as a path to a binary to be executed by the
newsyslog(8)
after rotation instead of sending the signal out.
- signal
- This optional field specifies the signal that will be sent to the daemon
process (or to all processes in a process group, if the
U flag was specified). If this field is not
present, then a SIGHUP signal will be sent. Signal
names must start with “SIG” and be the signal name, e.g.,
SIGUSR1 . Alternatively,
signal can be the signal number, e.g., 30 for
SIGUSR1 .
The following is an example of the
“⟨include ⟩” entry:
<include>
/etc/newsyslog-local.conf
bzip2(1),
gzip(1),
xz(1),
syslog(3),
chown(8),
newsyslog(8),
syslogd(8)
C. Lonvick,
The BSD syslog Protocol,
RFC3164.
R. Gerhards,
The Syslog Protocol,
RFC5424.
This manual page first appeared in FreeBSD 4.10.
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