Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 10:34:55 +1000
From: Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au>
To: submit@bugs.debian.org
Cc: logrotate@packages.debian.org
Subject: syslogd-listfiles prevents automated post-processing of logs (again)
Message-ID: <19991026103455.F30014@taz.net.au>
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Package: sysklogd
Version: 1.3-33

several problems and suggestions in one bug report:


1. --ignore-size option should be default behaviour

current behaviour of syslogd-listfiles makes it difficult to automate
post-processing of rotated logfiles because it is not possible to
accurately predict exactly when a given logfile will be rotated.

this breaks several local cron scripts which depend on the old behaviour
of the sysklogd package where logfiles were rotated at specific times
(i.e. either daily or weekly or monthly) and not seemingly at random.


2. the --ignore-size option is not documented in the manpage. it's
existence is only evident by examine the /usr/sbin/syslogd-listfiles
perl script.


3. 2MB is arbitrarily small size to base rotation on.

size-based rotation should not only be optional, it should be configurable.
i.e. the '--ignore-size' option should be replaced with a '--max-size nnn'
option where 'nnn' is size in MB.


4. if, for some reason, you do not wish to change the default behaviour
of syslogd-listfiles to something sensible then syslogd-listfiles needs
a config file so that a system admin can safely upgrade the sysklogd
package without having to remember to hack /usr/sbin/syslogd-listfiles
every time to remove the annoying 2MB size check.

e.g. /etc/syslogd-listfiles.conf could contain a line like:

	--max-size 2

for current broken behaviour, or:

	--max-size 0

to disable size-based rotation entirely.

5. as a general comment, it seems that planning and co-ordination is
required between the sysklogd and logrotate packages. logrotate seems
to be usurping the log-rotation functionality of sysklogd (and other
packages). without proper co-ordination, both packages will rotate the
same logfiles leading to annoying problems (as logrotate has caused with
the wtmp file). it may be a good thing for sysklogd to leave all log
rotation to the logrotate package, which at least allows the end-user to
set rotation schedules according to their own needs.


craig

--
craig sanders