Logrotation is available in most Linux distros. If they are missing, you can easily install them. The logrotation main configuration file is located in /etc/logrotate.conf which is the default setting. The config file contains an include statement that pulls in other log configurations located in the /etc/logrotate.d/ directory. When setting up a log rotation, it’s best to add your log rotation configuration in this directory.

Here’s a simple configuration in a file called webmon.

<pre lang="bash">/home/ubuntu/webmon.log {
        daily
        create 0640 ubuntu ubuntu
        dateext
        rotate 7
	nocompress
}

The options above does the following:

  • The logs are rotated daily.
  • The logs are rotated 7 times with no compression.
  • The rotate log files will have dates appended to them.
  • The log files are owned user ubuntu with permission of 0640.

There are more options from the logrotate man pages which can be added.