logrotate Cookbook

Manages the logrotate package and provides a definition to manage application specific logrotate configuration.

Requirements

Should work on any platform that includes a 'logrotate' package and writes logrotate configuration to /etc/logrotate.d. Tested on Ubuntu, Debian and Red Hat/CentOS.

Recipes

global

Generates and controls a global /etc/logrotate.conf file that will include additional files generated by the logrotate_app definition (see below). The contents of the configuration file is controlled through node attributes under node['logrotate']['global']. The default attributes are based on the configuration from the Ubuntu logrotate package.

To define a valueless directive (e.g. compress, copy) simply add an attribute named for the directive with a truthy value :

node['logrotate']['global']['compress'] = 'any value here'

Note that defining a valueless directive with a falsey value will not make it false, but will remove it:

# Removes a defaulted 'compress' directive; does not add a 'nocompress' directive.
node.override['logrotate']['global']['compress'] = false

To fully override a booleanish directive like compress, you should probably remove the positive form and add the negative form:

node.override['logrotate']['global']['compress'] = false
node.override['logrotate']['global']['nocompress'] = true

The same is true of frequency directives; to be certain the frequency directive you want is included in the global configuration, you should override the ones you don't want as false:

%w[ daily weekly yearly ].each do |freq|
  node.override['logrotate']['global'][freq] = false
end
node.override['logrotate']['global']['monthly'] = true

To define a parameter with a value (e.g. create, mail) add an attribute with the desired value:

node['logrotate']['global']['create'] = '0644 root adm'

To define a path stanza in the global configuration (generally unneeded because of the logrotate_app definition) just add an attribute with the path as the name and a hash containing directives and parameters as described above:

node['logrotate']['global']['/var/log/wtmp'] = {
  'missingok' => true,
  'monthly'   => true,
  'create'    => '0660 root utmp',
  'rotate'    => 1
}

firstaction, prerotate, postrotate, and lastaction scripts can be defined either as arrays of the lines to put in the script or multiline strings:

node['logrotate']['global']['/var/log/foo/*.log'] = {
  'missingok'  => true,
  'monthly'    => true,
  'create'     => '0660 root adm',
  'rotate'     => 1,
  'prerotate'  => ['service foo start_rotate', 'logger started foo service log rotation'],
  'postrotate' => <<-EOF
    service foo end_rotate
    logger completed foo service log rotation
  EOF
}

Definitions

logrotate_app

This definition can be used to drop off customized logrotate config files on a per application basis.

The definition takes the following params:

• path: specifies a single path (string) or multiple paths (array) that should have logrotation stanzas created in the config file. No default, this must be specified.
• enable: true/false, if true it will create the template in /etc/logrotate.d.
• frequency: sets the frequency for rotation. Default value is 'weekly'. Valid values are: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, see the logrotate man page for more information.
• dateformat: specifies date extension with %Y, %m, %d, and %s. The default value is -%Y%m%d.
• size: Log files are rotated when they grow bigger than size bytes.
• maxsize: Log files are rotated when they grow bigger than size bytes even before the additionally specified time interval.
• su: Rotate log files set under this user and group instead of using default user/group.
• template: sets the template source, default is "logrotate.erb".
• template_mode: the mode to create the logrotate template with (default "0440")
• template_owner: the owner of the logrotate template (default "root")
• template_group: the group of the logrotate template (default "root")
• cookbook: select the template source from the specified cookbook. By default it will use the template from the logrotate cookbook.
• create: creation parameters for the logrotate "create" config, follows the form "mode owner group". This is an optional parameter, and is nil by default.
• firstaction: lines to be executed once before all log files that match the wildcarded pattern are rotated, before pre-rotate script is run and only if at least one log will actually be rotated
• postrotate: lines to be executed after the log file is rotated
• prerotate: lines to be executed before the log file is rotated
• lastaction: lines to be executed once after all log files that match the wildcarded pattern are rotated, after postrotate script is run and only if at least one log is rotated
• rotate: Log files are rotated this many times before being removed or mailed.
• sharedscripts: if true, the sharedscripts options is specified which makes sure prescript and postscript commands are run only once (even if multiple files match the path)

Usage

The default recipe will ensure logrotate is always up to date.

To create application specific logrotate configs, use the logrotate_app definition. For example, to rotate logs for a tomcat application named myapp that writes its log file to /var/log/tomcat/myapp.log:

logrotate_app 'tomcat-myapp' do
  cookbook  'logrotate'
  path      '/var/log/tomcat/myapp.log'
  frequency 'daily'
  rotate    30
  create    '644 root adm'
end

To rotate multiple logfile paths, specify the path as an array:

logrotate_app 'tomcat-myapp' do
  cookbook  'logrotate'
  path      ['/var/log/tomcat/myapp.log', '/opt/local/tomcat/catalina.out']
  frequency 'daily'
  create    '644 root adm'
  rotate    7
end

To specify which logrotate options, specify the options as an array:

logrotate_app 'tomcat-myapp' do
  cookbook  'logrotate'
  path      '/var/log/tomcat/myapp.log'
  options   ['missingok', 'delaycompress', 'notifempty']
  frequency 'daily'
  rotate    30
  create    '644 root adm'
end

License & Authors

• Author:: Scott M. Likens (scott@likens.us)
• Author:: Joshua Timberman (joshua@chef.io)

Copyright 2009, Scott M. Likens
Copyright 2011-2012, Chef Software, Inc.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.