EXICYCLOG(8)

NAME
exicyclog - Cycle exim's logfiles

SYNOPSIS
eximcyclog

DESCRIPTION
The exicyclog script can be used to cycle (rotate) mainlog and rejectlog files. This is not necessary if only syslog is being used. Some operating systems have their own standard mechanisms for log cycling, and these can be used instead of exicyclog if preferred.

Each time exicyclog is run the file names get ‘shuffled down’ by one. If the main log file name is mainlog (the default) then when exicyclog is run mainlog becomes mainlog.01, the previous mainlog.01 becomes mainlog.02 and so on, up to a limit which is set in the script, and which defaults to 10. Reject logs are handled similarly.

If no mainlog file exists, the script does nothing. Files that ‘drop off’ the end are deleted. All files with numbers greater than 01 are compressed, using a compression command which is configured by the COMPRESS_COMMAND setting in Local/Makefile. It is usual to run “exicyclog” daily from a root “crontab” entry of the form

  1 0 * * * su exim -c /usr/exim/bin/exicyclog

assuming you have used the name ‘exim’ for the Exim user. You can run exicyclog as root if you wish, but there is no need.

BUGS
This manual page needs a major re-work. If somebody knows better groff than us and has more experience in writing manual pages, any patches would be greatly appreciated.

SEE ALSO
exim(8), /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/

AUTHOR
This manual page was stitched together from spec.txt by Andreas Metzler <ametzler at downhill.at.eu.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).