Thoughts on Apache log file sizes?

Posted by Nathan Long on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Nathan Long
Published on 2010-04-02T15:24:02Z Indexed on 2010/04/02 15:33 UTC
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log-files

Do you place any limits on the size of Apache log files - access.log and error.log?

Specifically, can you give:

Reasons to limit log file sizes
- Disk space
- Any other?
Reasons NOT to limit log file sizes
- Research into performance issues or security breaches
- Any other?
Methods of doing so
- Cron job that periodically deletes the file, or the first N lines?
- Any other?
Anything you might salvage before deleting
- For example, grep out how many times a file was downloaded before deleting the access logs

I'd like get the thoughts of experienced sysadmins before I do anything.

(Marking as community wiki since this may be a matter of opinion.)

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Developer IT

Thoughts on Apache log file sizes? - Developer IT

Thoughts on Apache log file sizes?

log-files

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