FreeBSD uses NewSysLog to rotate log files.
NewSysLog is installed and running by default on FreeBSD servers, so what you need to do is add your log files (Eg: Apache log files) to /etc/newsyslog.conf
To rotate Apache log, i have added following files to end of /etc/newsyslog.conf
/home/backup/httpd-access.log 644 4 * @T00 B /var/run/httpd.pid 30
/home/backup/httpd-error.log 644 4 * @T00 B /var/run/httpd.pid 30
/home/backup/ is the location of apache log files in my server. By default, it will be in /var/log folder.
644 – mode- this is the permission (chmod) of the log files
4 – count- newsyslog will keep 4 previous copies of the log files
* – size – Don’t rotate log file on size of of log.
@T00 – when – rotate log file everyday at 0 Hours.
$D0 rotate every night at midnight (same as @T00)
$D23 rotate every day at 23:00 (same as @T23)
$W0D23 rotate every week on Sunday at 23:00
$W5D16 rotate every week on Friday at 16:00
$M1D0 rotate at the first day of every month at midnight
(i.e., the start of the day; same as @01T00)
$M5D6 rotate on every 5th day of month at 6:00 (same as
@05T06)
/var/run/httpd.pid – is pid file, is used if newsyslog need to restart service. In this case apache need to be restarted for log rotation.
You can find path to httpd.pid from httpd.conf
# grep PidFile /usr/local/etc/apache/httpd.conf
# PidFile: The file in which the server should record its process
PidFile /var/run/httpd.pid
30 – Is signal number of gracefull restart of apache
server16# cat /etc/newsyslog.conf
# configuration file for newsyslog
# $FreeBSD: src/etc/newsyslog.conf,v 1.49 2004/04/03 17:52:29 mlaier Exp $
#
# Entries which do not specify the ‘/pid_file’ field will cause the
# syslogd process to be signalled when that log file is rotated. This
# action is only appropriate for log files which are written to by the
# syslogd process (ie, files listed in /etc/syslog.conf). If there
# is no process which needs to be signalled when a given log file is
# rotated, then the entry for that file should include the ‘N’ flag.
#
# The ‘flags’ field is one or more of the letters: BCGJNUWZ or a ‘-‘.
#
# Note: some sites will want to select more restrictive protections than the
# defaults. In particular, it may be desirable to switch many of the 644
# entries to 640 or 600. For example, some sites will consider the
# contents of maillog, messages, and lpd-errs to be confidential. In the
# future, these defaults may change to more conservative ones.
#
# logfilename [owner:group] mode count size when flags [/pid_file] [sig_num]
/var/log/all.log 600 7 * @T00 J
/var/log/amd.log 644 7 100 * J
/var/log/auth.log 600 7 100 * J
/var/log/console.log 600 5 100 * J
/var/log/cron 600 3 100 * J
/var/log/daily.log 640 7 * @T00 JN
/var/log/debug.log 600 7 100 * J
/var/log/kerberos.log 600 7 100 * J
/var/log/lpd-errs 644 7 100 * J
/var/log/maillog 640 7 * @T00 J
/var/log/messages 644 5 100 * J
/var/log/monthly.log 640 12 * $M1D0 JN
/var/log/pflog 600 3 100 * JB /var/run/pflogd.pid
/var/log/ppp.log root:network 640 3 100 * J
/var/log/security 600 10 100 * J
/var/log/sendmail.st 640 10 * 168 B
/var/log/slip.log root:network 640 3 100 * J
/var/log/weekly.log 640 5 1 $W6D0 JN
/var/log/wtmp 644 3 * @01T05 B
/var/log/xferlog 600 7 100 * J
/home/backup/httpd-access.log 644 4 * @T00 B /var/run/httpd.pid 30
/home/backup/httpd-error.log 644 4 * @T00 B /var/run/httpd.pid 30server16#
