Log Rotation in OS X
How-to
OS X uses newsyslog utility instead of logrotate as typically used in Linux-based systems.
The configuration file for newsyslog can be found at /etc/newsyslog.conf.
$ sudo vim /etc/newsyslog.conf
In newsyslog, each entry is defined in a single line according to the following format:
logfilename [owner:group] mode count size when flags [/pid_file] [sig_num]
A sample entry can then be defined as such (excluding the columns surrounded by [ ]):
/var/log/named.stats 640 5 1000 * J
Quick explanation for the entry above:
- Mode 640 is defined according to the UNIX file permission settings, rw for owner and r for group members.
- Keep up to a max. of 5 log files.
- Rotate when current log file reaches 1000 KB.
- when = * means that the rotation can happen at any time.
- flags = J means that the older files are to be compressed using bzip2.