Logrotate

Logrotate is a Linux utility for rotating logs by reading policies defined in /etc/logrotate.d/. You can read more about setting up logrotate in this RedHat blog entry.

You can create a logrotate policy for pretty much any file you output logs to, but it is recommended to store your logs in /var/log/ or a subdirectory in that path, i.e. /var/log/program_name/some_logfile.log.

Logrotate policies should be defined in files in the /etc/logrotate.d/ directory.

See the cheatsheet page for a logrotate commands cheatsheet and example logrotate policy files.

Tip

When creating a logrotate policy file, choose a name that describes the log file it applies to, and create the file at the root of /etc/logrotate.d/, don’t use subdirectories. There are ways to do that, but unless you have trouble maintaining your policies in a ‘flat’ structure, logrotate will not detect your nested policies.

An example of a logrotate policy that rotates /var/log/some_program/function.log could be named /etc/logrotate.d/some_program_function.

You do not need to put a file extension in the filename. The file must be owned by root.

Policy file

A policy file defined at /etc/logrotate.d/policy_filename should start with the path to the file it applies to. For example, a policy that rotates a log at /var/log/program_name/function.log would start with:

/var/log/program_name/function.log {}

You then add your configurations in the {} mapping. See the policy options cheatsheet for an overview of commonly used options.

For example, a logrotate policy that:

rotates the file daily, keeping the last 14 rotated logs
compresses each rotated file with gzip, but delays the most recently compressed logfile (for easy access of the most recently rotated log file)
does not error if the log file is missing
skips if the log file’s contents are empty
recreates the file after rotation with chmod 0640 and chown root:adm

/var/log/program_name/function.log {
    daily
    rotate 14
    compress
    delaycompress
    missingok
    notifempty
    create 0640 root adm
}

Last updated on July 3, 2026