Apache vhost and logrotate

[PatricF]

Hi,

I have an Apache server configured on a Debian 6.0 machine.
I'm going to have a bunch of vhosts on this server and was wondering how to configure logrotate for them if I don't have the logs in the default folder.

As of now I have it like this. Each vhost has it's own directory in /var/www/vhosts with some subdirs like this:


/var/www/vhosts/example.com:
-> cgi-bin
-> html_doc
-> logs


So everyone can see their own logfiles.
However as default Apache has all the logs in /var/log/apache2 and it rotate the logs just fine there and the logrotate conf for that looks like this:

/var/log/apache2/*.log {
        weekly
        missingok
        rotate 52
        compress
        delaycompress
        notifempty
        create 640 root adm
        sharedscripts
        postrotate
                /etc/init.d/apache2 reload > /dev/null
        endscript
}

Is it possible to do it like this in my scenario?

/var/www/vhosts/*/logs/*.log {
        weekly
        missingok
        rotate 52
        compress
        delaycompress
        notifempty
        create 640 root adm
        sharedscripts
        postrotate
                /etc/init.d/apache2 reload > /dev/null
        endscript
}

Or won't it accept two wildcards like that?


Thanks,
-Patric

[Irithori]

Afaik, logrotate accepts wildcards, even multiple times.

Other than that, may I suggest an improvement to your setup?
Logrotate would reload the apache for each rotated file, which is not ideal.

With the help of an external tool (cronolog) and the ability of apache to write logs to pipes, this config snippet implements a non-interrupted logservice:

<Macro MyWebsite $country $serverdomain>
  <VirtualHost        *>
    ServerName	www.$serverdomain
.
.
    CustomLog "|| /usr/sbin/cronolog \
               -S /data/log/apache/MyWebsite_$country_access.log \
               /data/log/apache/MyWebsite_$country_access.log-%Y%m%d" \
               combined
  </VirtualHost>
</Macro>

Use MyWebsite de myDEdomain
Use MyWebsite fr myFRdomain
Use MyWebsite uk myUKdomain

Notes:
- The || makes sure, that no extra shell is started. It is no longer needed in apache 2.4. A single | does the same.
- mod_macro is used here. In case you wonder where $country comes from
- /data/log/apache/MyWebsite_$country_access.log is a symlink. The name is static.
- Rotated and the current logfiles have a timestamp in the name.
- ErrorLog and AccessLog can of course also log to pipes.

So essentially, apache rotates its own files in a non-service-interrupting way.
They are not gzipped and old ones will not be deleted. This might or might not be an issue for you and probably a task for further processing.

[PatricF]

Thanks, I will take a look at that!