Reducing rsyslog redundancy [was: brainstorming for UDS-N - Performance - disk footprint]

[Steve Langasek]

On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 04:55:06PM -0600, Martin Pitt wrote:
> Hello Steve,

> Steve Langasek [2011-01-12 16:26 -0600]:
> > Should there be a corresponding change to the default logrotate policy, to
> > avoid creating 0-byte log files that mislead the admin?

> I actually tested "logrotate -v -f /etc/logrotate.conf" and it seems
> that the default configuration of "missingok" and "notifempty" do
> their job:

> considering log /var/log/daemon.log
>   log /var/log/daemon.log does not exist -- skipping

> I'd like to keep the files in the default logrotate configuration for
> (1) upgrades, and (2) the case that the admin does re-enable them.

It's precisely the upgrade case that I'm concerned about.
/var/log/daemon.log will exist (created by rsyslog running with the old
config), so it will be rotated; then the default 'create' option will cause
a new zero-byte /var/log/daemon.log to be created - it won't get rotated
again *after* that but may cause the admin to be confused that the log file
is there but empty:  where did all my logs go?!

Obviously this confusion is easily solved by reading /etc/rsyslog.conf so
maybe this is a non-issue.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 828 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/attachments/20110112/6826f63a/attachment.pgp>