Zenoss employees unix’s logrotate functionality, mainly so that log file do not become humongous, and also to keep them manageable. By default, logs are rotated on a weekly basis.

Logrotate is pre-setup on most Zenoss installs (post version 2.2.4), though logrotate can be used on any system.

logrotate - rotates, compresses, and mails system logs

       logrotate  is  designed to ease administration of systems that generate
       large numbers of log files.  It allows automatic rotation, compression,
       removal, and mailing of log files.  Each log file may be handled daily,
       weekly, monthly, or when it grows too large.

       Normally, logrotate is run as a daily cron job.  It will not  modify  a
       log  multiple  times  in  one  day unless the criterium for that log is
       based on the log’s size and logrotate is being run multiple times  each
       day, or unless the -f or -force option is used.

Check out the following files, locations, and commands (as su - zenoss):

• /etc/logrotate.conf
• /etc/logrotate.d/zenoss
• cd $ZENHOME/log/

$ pwd
/etc/logrotate.d
$ ls -la
total 36
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root 4096 Feb 10 14:15 .
drwxr-xr-x  47 root root 4096 Feb 10 14:21 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   62 Nov 15  2005 conary
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  221 Dec 15  2005 mysqld
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  745 May 10  2007 raa
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  232 Jul  7  2004 samba
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  154 Oct 15  2004 snmpd
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  228 Jul  7  2004 syslog
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   68 Jan 15  2007 zenoss

$ more zenoss
/home/zenoss/log/*.log {
    weekly
    rotate 2
    copytruncate
}

$ cd $ZENHOME/log/
$ pwd
/home/zenoss/log
$ ls
event.log             zeneventlog.log.1      zenperfsnmp.log.1      zentrap.log.1
event.log.1           zeneventlog.log.2.bz2  zenperfsnmp.log.2.bz2  zenwebtx.log
event.log.2.bz2       zenhub.log             zenping.log            zenwebtx.log.1
README.txt            zenhub.log.1           zenping.log.1          zenwebtx.log.2.bz2
Z2.log                zenhub.log.2.bz2       zenping.log.2.bz2      zenwin.log
Z2.log.1              zenjmx.log             zenprocess.log         zenwin.log.1
Z2.log.2.bz2          zenjmx.log.1           zenprocess.log.1       zenwinperf.log
zenactions.log        zenjmx.log.2.bz2       zenprocess.log.2.bz2   zenwinperf.log.1
zenactions.log.1      zenmailtx.log          zenstatus.log          zenwinperf.log.2.bz2
zenactions.log.2.bz2  zenmailtx.log.1        zenstatus.log.1        zeo.log
zencommand.log        zenmodeler.log         zenstatus.log.2.bz2    zeo.log.1
zencommand.log.1      zenmodeler.log.1       zensyslog.log          zeo.log.2.bz2
zencommand.log.2.bz2  zenmodeler.log.2.bz2   zensyslog.log.1
zeneventlog.log       zenperfsnmp.log        zentrap.log