Lock down your logfiles with logrotate
Setting the Records Straight
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The simple act of logging can create management and storage nightmares. Logrotate brings creative solutions to your logging needs.
When you are new to running servers and rightly worried about keeping downtime to a minimum, you inevitably find yourself facing a few problems – some predictable and others not so much. A particular aspect of systems that repeatedly causes consternation is logging and its concomitant storage.
To my mind, logging is one of the truly operational aspects of being a sys admin. Even with the best automation in the world, to get system logging right, you need to invest a little forethought along with very occasional housekeeping. After attempting to diagnose a few system problems, you soon come to realize that logs are absolutely essential. I'll reiterate that last statement by saying that they are not just important, they are truly key to keeping your servers functioning correctly.
Logfiles come in all different shapes and sizes and hold all kinds of information, both useful and relatively useless. Some logs are inconsequential if lost, whereas others are so critical to the operation of a server that their presence can mean the difference between a full server rebuild (sometimes adding several days of additional work to your busy week) or a five-minute health check.
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