📖 ~1 min read
Table of contents
Symptom & Impact
log files grow without rotation on RHEL 7, consuming disk and destabilizing services.
Environment & Reproduction
Expected rotated archives are missing, primary log files exceed thresholds, and disk usage climbs quickly.
Root Cause Analysis
Incorrect logrotate stanza paths, bad dateext options, missing postrotate reload, or cron/anacron execution issues.
Quick Triage
Run logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf, inspect /var/lib/logrotate/status, and verify cron service activity.
Step-by-Step Diagnosis
Use journalctl -u crond and related application logs to confirm rotation tasks are not executing.
Solution – Primary Fix
Review per-service files in /etc/logrotate.d for syntax, ownership, and appropriate rotate frequency settings.
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Solution – Alternative Approaches
Fix policy syntax, test with logrotate -f, ensure crond is active, and reload services that keep file handles open.
Verification & Acceptance Criteria
SELinux may block postrotate scripts in unusual paths; firewalld is generally unrelated to local log rotation.
Rollback Plan
Confirm logs rotate on schedule and verify daemons continue writing to new files after reload.
Prevention & Hardening
Restore prior logrotate files if aggressive policy truncates needed logs or breaks service hooks.
Related Errors & Cross-Refs
Audit logrotate rules regularly and monitor largest log files with alert thresholds.
Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for rhel-7.
View all rhel-7 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →
Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.
References & Further Reading
See man logrotate, crond documentation, and RHEL 7 logging operations recommendations.
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