How to debug logrotate warnings or errors when logrotate is not running correctly

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) all versions

Issue

How to debug logrotate warnings or errors when logrotate is not running correctly

Resolution

Check the logrotate.status file

  • Check your logrotate.status file to see which files rotated:

    # cat /var/lib/logrotate/logrotate.status

Run logrotate in a debug mode

  • Run the logrotate command manually in a debug mode and check for errors:

    # /usr/sbin/logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf

Identify a configuration file causing the issue

  • Depending on the errors reported in the debug output, fix configuration issues in /etc/logrotate.conf, in configuration files in /etc/logrotate.d/, or other issues reported in the debug output.

Re-run logrotate in the debug mode

# /usr/sbin/logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf

If no errors appear, logrotate should work properly.

Avoid sharing logrotate.status file in different logrotate instances

  • The system might has multiple logrotate configuration instances which share same logrotate.status file. This cause conflict.
  • Each configuration instance must have each different logrotate.status file. Confliction can cause unpredictable issue.

  • Add --state /path/to/status_filename option to isolate each logrotate configurations.

    $ cat /etc/cron.daily/logrotate 
#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/logrotate /etc/logrotate.conf       <<=== This use default '/var/lib/logrotate/logrotate.status'
[..omit..]
$ cat /etc/cron.hourly/logrotate_rsyslog 
#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/logrotate /etc/logrotate_rsyslog.conf     <<=== Also use default '/var/lib/logrotate/logrotate.status', CONFLICT!
[..omit..]

Root Cause

In this example, the root cause is a missing directory /var/log/conman.old. Creating the directory solves the issue:

~~~
# mkdir /var/log/conman.old
~~~

Diagnostic Steps

  • Confirm if cron service is running correctly with:

    # systemctl status crond.service

  • Sometimes some warnings or errors are created in the /var/log/messsages file. For example:

    logrotate: ALERT exited abnormally with [1]

  • The logrotate command has an argument -d, which turns on a debug mode. In the debug mode, no changes will be made to the logs or to the logrotate state file. If needed, the debugging output can be redirected into a file (e.g. /tmp/logrotate.debug), which may be very useful for debugging:

    # /usr/sbin/logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf 2> /tmp/logrotate.debug

  • Example of a debugging output:

    reading config file /etc/logrotate.conf
including /etc/logrotate.d
reading config file acpid
reading config info for /var/log/acpid 
reading config file conman
reading config info for /var/log/conman/* 
olddir is now /var/log/conman.old/
error: conman:21 error verifying olddir path /var/log/conman.old/: No such file or directory

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