RHBA-2015:1293 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated logrotate packages that fix several bugs and add two enhancements are
now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

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 utility attempted to write its status file while

insufficient disk space was available, logrotate wrote only part of the status
file and stopped. When the disk space became free again, and log rotate
attempted to read its records, logrotate terminated unexpectedly. This bug has
been fixed, and logrotate no longer crashes in the aforementioned scenario.
(BZ#625034)

• Previously, the daily cronjob of logrotate redirected all error messages to

the /dev/null device file, thus suppressing all the relevant information for
troubleshooting. With this update, all error messages containing detailed error
reports are mailed to the root user. In addition, the /etc/cron.daily/logrotate
file has been marked as a configuration file in RPM. (BZ#722209)

• Previously, the /etc/cron.daily/logrotate file had incorrect permissions set.

This update changes the permissions to 0700, and /etc/cron.daily/logrotate now
conforms to Red Hat security policy GEN003080. (BZ#1012485)

• The logrotate utility incorrectly deleted data files alphabetically instead

of based on their age when the when the "-%d-%m-%Y" date format was used. This
update sorts files returned by the glob() function according to the date
extension. As a result, when the aforementioned date format is used, the oldest
log is now removed as expected. (BZ#1117189)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

• The logrotate "olddir" directive now automatically creates a directory if it

is not already present. (BZ#1125769)

• This update adds logrotate features for "size" directive parsing and "maxsize"

directive. (BZ#1047899)

Users of logrotate are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix
these bugs and add these enhancements.

Solution

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

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x

Fixes

• BZ - 625034 - [log-rotate] [rhel6] update of logrotate.status should be atomic
• BZ - 722209 - /etc/cron.daily/logrotate should not suppress messages and is not marked as a configuration file
• BZ - 984965 - cppcheck reveals new errors in 16->17 release
• BZ - 1012485 - /etc/cron.daily/logrotate breaks rule GEN003080 in Red Hat security guide

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)