Synopsis

logrotate bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated logrotate packages that fix several bugs and add one enhancement are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Description

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

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, the logrotate utility ignored "maillast" directive when compression was in use. As a consequence, the subject of an email was the name of the rotated file instead of the name of the file removed by logrotate. With this update, logrotate has been fixed to respect "maillast" also in case of a compression and to set the subject correctly to the file which is going to be removed. (BZ#1244156)
• The logrotate(8) manual page entry for the "olddir" directive did not mention the influence of "copy" and "copytruncate" on the "olddir" directive. The missing piece of information has been added, and users are now informed that "olddir" can be used when rotating files to different file system when "copy" or "copytruncate" directives are used. (BZ#1175292)
• The logrotate utility incorrectly deleted data files alphabetically instead of based on their age when the "-%d-%m-%Y" date format was used. With this update, files returned by the glob() function are sorted according to the date extension. As a result, when the mentioned date format is used, the oldest log is now removed as expected. (BZ#1174208)
• 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 emailed to the root user. In addition, the /etc/cron.daily/logrotate script has been marked as a configuration file in RPM. (BZ#1174207)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancement:

• A new logrotate "createolddir" directive has been added to enable automatic creation of the olddir directory. For more information, see the logrotate(8) manual page. (BZ#1187161)

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

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 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 7 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.7 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 7 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.7 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.5 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.4 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.3 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.3 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian 7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.6 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.5 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.4 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.3 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.2 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (for IBM Power LE) - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (for IBM Power LE) - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.6 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (for IBM Power LE) - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.4 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (for IBM Power LE) - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.3 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.3 x86_64

Fixes

• BZ - 1174207 - /etc/cron.daily/logrotate should not suppress messages and is not marked as a configuration file
• BZ - 1175292 - fixing olddir man entry for logrotate to correctly state supported use cases

CVEs

(none)

References