RHBA-2011:0816 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated logrotate package that fixes various bugs is now available for Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Description

The logrotate utility simplifies the administration of multiple log files,
allowing the automatic rotation, compression, removal, and mailing of log files.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• When the logrotate.status file was corrupted, the logrotate utility correctly

displayed an error message, but did not return a non-zero exit code to indicate
a failure. With this update, a patch has been applied to address this issue, and
a corrupted logrotate.status file now causes logrotate to terminate with error
code 1 as expected. (BZ#461494)

• The "size" configuration option allows a user to specify the minimum size a

particular file must reach in order for logrotate to start rotating it. Prior to
this update, the maximum supported value of this option was limited to 4
gigabytes. With this update, this limit has been increased to 16 exabytes.
(BZ#484075)

• When used to rotate the /var/log/btmp file, previous versions of the logrotate

utility incorrectly changed the permissions of this file to "0644". With this
update, a default configuration entry for the /var/log/btmp file has been added
to ensure the permissions are correctly set to "0600". (BZ#485553)

• The "missingok" configuration option allows a user to prevent the logrotate

utility from reporting an error when a particular log file is missing.
Previously, the presence of a wildcard character (typically "*") in a file name
caused logrotate to ignore this option. With this update, a patch has been
applied to address this issue, and the use of the wildcard characters in the
file names no longer causes logrotate to ignore the "missingok" option.
(BZ#540119)

• Prior to this update, when the logrotate utility failed to rename a log file,

it did not detect this error and incorrectly overwrote or even deleted the
original file. To prevent a loss of potentially important logs, this update
adapts the utility not to rotate files that cannot be renamed. (BZ#567365)

• Previously, a recursive use of the "include" directive in a configuration file

caused the logrotate utility to terminate unexpectedly with a segmentation
fault. This update applies an upstream patch that limits the maximum level of
recursion, and the recursive use of the "include" directive no longer causes
logrotate to crash. (BZ#574784)

• Due to an error in the application logic, the logrotate utility passed an

argument with a wildcard to the prerotate and postrotate scripts even when the
"sharedscripts" configuration option was specified. With this update, this error
no longer occurs, and specifying the "sharedscripts" option now causes logrotate
to correctly pass a full path to a particular log. (BZ#579680)

• Previously, the logrotate(8) manual page did not provide a description of the

arguments that are passed to the prerotate and postrotate scripts. This update
extends the manual page to include this information. (BZ#474013)

• Previously, the "AUTHORS" section of the logrotate(8) manual page did not

include the current maintainer of the logrotate utility. This error has been
fixed, and logrotate(8) now contains an up-to-date list of authors.
Additionally, the manual page now provides a link to the project homepage.
(BZ#622059)

• In the logrotate(8) manual page, the description of the "size" configuration

option stated that log files are rotated when they grow bigger than the
specified file size. Since this description was rather vague, this update
corrects the manual page to provide a more accurate description of this option.
(BZ#638591)

• Previously, the logrotate(8) manual page did not provide a description of the

"-?", "--help", "--verbose", and "--debug" command line options. This error has
been fixed, and the manual page now covers all supported command line options as
expected. (BZ#642936)

All users of logrotate are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which
fixes these bugs.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red
Hat Network to apply this update are available at
https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 461494 - Bad exit code when logrotate.status is corrupt (0)
• BZ - 474013 - logrotate documentation does not discuss script arguments
• BZ - 484075 - logrotate "size" directive cannot exceed 1895825408 bytes
• BZ - 485553 - logrotate breaks permission on /var/log/btmp
• BZ - 540119 - missingok problem with globs
• BZ - 567365 - log deleted after "gzip: stdin: Input/output error"
• BZ - 574784 - logrotate doesn't prevent recursive includes
• BZ - 579680 - logrotate postrotate script args
• BZ - 622059 - Author info is wrong in man page.
• BZ - 638591 - Ambiguity in logrotate man page (definition of "size" parameter)

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)