var partition is too small

[Redmond Militante]

hi

a cron job that moves httpd-access.logs to an archive directory sounds like a fine idea - is it safe, though to move these logs while apache and syslogd are running?  or would the cron job need to stop those apps first, move the logs, then restart apache/syslogd?

thanks

redmond

[Fri, Oct 03, 2003 at 02:27:00PM +0000]
This one time, at band camp, Jens Rehsack said:

> Redmond Militante wrote:
> >hi all
> >
> >the var partition on my apache box may be too small.
> >this is a problem because - 
> >i originally had newsyslog set at
> >
> >/var/log/httpd-access.log               644  7     100  24    B 
> >/var/run/httpd.pid 30
> >
> >which sets httpd-access.log to be rotated in binary format everytime it 
> >reaches 100 mb or once every hour for 24 hours.
> >which basically means we only archive less than a day's worth of 
> >httpd-access.log's on this machine...
> >
> >
> >the /var partition on this machine is 252 mb.
> 
> Looks like sysinstalls defaults.
> Maybe this should be fixed some fine day :-)
> 
> >yesterday i was told asked to start archiving httpd-access.logs for 
> >analysis over longer periods of time - that i should be keeping a year's 
> >worth of logs, if possible.  i remember the original reason i set up 
> >newsyslog.conf to rotate httpd-access.logs on this machine so frequently 
> >is because the webserver is really busy, and this file tends to grow 
> >pretty rapidly, and i didn't want to have to log in, stop apache, and 
> >archive the logs by hand every day...
> >
> >yesterday i looked into expanding the size of my /var partition by 
> >symlinking.
> >
> >-drop to single user mode
> >-stop syslogd
> >-mv /var to /usr/var
> >-umount /var
> >-delete /var directory
> >-create symlink from /usr/var to /var
> 
> That's really bad, because this means that there will be permanent
> write accesses to you /usr label.
> 
> A better way could be a cron job which moves the old http-logs
> once a day into a place in /usr, eg. /usr/save-logs.
> 
> >it seems easy, and i did it successfully once, but i hosed a 
> >(non)production box yesterday practicing the above procedure.
> >
> >i have a number of questions:
> >-if i copy the contents of /var to /usr/var, then delete the var 
> >directory, do i need to modify my fstab?
> 
> If you've done it as described, that would be better.
> But I think you should re-think about the procedure.
> 
> >my fstab right now looks like
> >
> >/dev/aacd0s1g           /usr            ufs     rw              2       2
> >/dev/aacd0s1e           /var            ufs     rw              2       2
> >
> >-do i need to modify this so that /var now points to a directory inside 
> >/usr? and how?
> >-i'm thinking that this may be too risky a procedure to try on a 
> >production box (i guess i'm spooked from ruining the practice box...) - 
> >anyone think i should just archive these logs by hand to someplace in my 
> >home directory (/usr is very large on this box - 65 gb - and hardly used)? 
> >my goal is basically to keep an archive of httpd-access.logs for as long 
> >as possible to produce a comprehensive webalizer report...
> >
> >thanks again
> >
> >redmond
> 
> Best,
> Jens
> 

-- 
FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE-p5 FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE-p5 #0: Wed Sep 24 09:12:23 CDT 2003
 9:30AM  up 1 day, 18:54, 2 users, load averages: 0.07, 0.17, 0.18
 
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	(2)  If they find you, LIE!!!!
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