Safely clean out old log files?

[NoOp]

On 12/04/2009 03:06 PM, Tom H wrote:
>> What is the best method to safely clean out old log files? I have log
>> files on some of my machines that go back to 2007 & I'm pretty sure that
>> I don't need them any longer. I could of course simply rm/delete any
>> logs that are older than one month, but wonder if that is the wisest choice.
>>
>> I know how to easily remove the old .gz files:
>> $ sudo rm -v /var/log/*.gz
>> but older non-.gz files will remain.
>>
>> I have /etc/logrotate.conf set to:
>>
>> # rotate log files weekly
>> weekly
>> # keep 4 weeks worth of backlogs
>> rotate 4
>> # create new (empty) log files after rotating old ones
>> create
>>
>> but logrotate wasn't set up until about the hardy or intrepid timeframe,
>> so I still have a lot of old .gz junk in /var/log.
>>
>> Note: standard Ubuntu desktops that have been upgraded from dapper thru
>> karmic. No special server packages (I use different machines for the
>> servers).
>>
>> Suggestions?
>> Maybe Ray could help :-)
> 
> find /var/log -type f -mtime +T -print0 | xargs -0 rm
> or
> find /var/log -type f -mtime +T -exec rm '{}' +
> where T is the number of days (more or less!) of logs that you want to keep
> 

Thanks (and thanks Marcus); I used:
$ sudo find /var/log -type f -mtime +T -exec rm '{}' +
('T' was first set for 30 and then tested w/15)
on a test system and it worked just fine. I'll now do the same on my
"backup/mirror" system (the one mirroring this with 2007 logs) & monitor
for a few days to see if removing the old logs have any ill effect. The
systems have full backup's so I can easily restore if necessary.

However, Amedee brings up a good point; why wouldn't logrotate have
cleaned out all of these old logs given my settings? I reckon that's an
excercise for the weekend to figure out :-)