Internal-Daemon Log Rotation; Cron-Based Log Rotation - Sun Microsystems Netscape Enterprise Server Administrator's Manual

Archiving Log Files

Internal-daemon Log Rotation

This type of log rotation happens within the HTTP daemon, and can only be
configured at startup time. Internal daemon log rotation allows the server to
rotate logs internally without requiring a server restart. Logs rotated using this
method are saved in the following format:
access.<4 digit year><2 digit month><2 digit day><4 digit 24-hour time>
You can specify the time used as a basis to rotate log files and start a new log
file. For example, if the rotation start time is 12:00 a.m., and the rotation interval
is 1440 minutes (one day), a new log file will be created immediately upon save
regardless of the present time and collect information until the rotation start
time. The log file will rotate every day at 12:00 a.m., and the access log will be
stamped at 12:00 a.m. and saved as access.199907152400. Likewise, if you
set the interval at 240 minutes (4 hours), the 4 hour intervals begin at 12:00 a.m.
such that the access log files will contain information gathered from 12:00 a.m.
to 4:00 a.m., from 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., and so forth.
If access log rotation is enabled, log file rotation starts at server startup. The first
access log file to be rotated gathers information from the current time until the
next rotation time. Using the previous example, if you set your start time at
12:00 a.m. and your rotation interval at 240 minutes, and the current time is
6:00 a.m., the first log file to be rotated will contain the information gathered
from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m, and the next log file will contain information from
8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (noon), and so forth.

Cron-based Log Rotation

This type of log rotation is based on the time stored in the cron.conf file in
the server_root /https-admserv/config/ directory. This method
allows you to archive log files immediately or have the server archive log files
at a specific time on specific days. The server's cron configuration options are
stored in ns-cron.conf in the server_root /https-admserv/config/
directory. Logs rotated using the cron based method are saved as the original
filename followed by the date and time the file was rotated. For example,
access might become access.24Apr-0430PM when it is rotates at 4:30
p.m. For more information about cron controls, see "Using Cron Controls (Unix
Only)" on page 78.
188 Netscape Enterprise Server Administrator's Guide