Garnet Chaney responds to tech questions from readers...
Question: My HTTP logs are not growing
Question: I have several linux web servers
running a bunch of virtual domains.
All of my sites are setup to keep separate access and error logs. I recently
transfered some sites from one machine to another. One of these sites,
site4, has an access_log that
won't grow. It stays stuck at zero bytes. But, when there are accesses to
this site, the time of the file is updated. For example:
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 3 04:10 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 31 23:43 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 admin4 admin4 0 Nov 3 07:37 access_log
-rw-r--r-- 1 admin4 admin4 0 Nov 3 03:40 access_log.1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1869373 Oct 23 23:59 access_log.10-23-03
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3480183 Oct 24 23:59 access_log.10-24-03
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 25280 Nov 3 07:37 access_log.11-03-03
and a few minutes later:
[root@dedicated admin]# ls -al /home/virtual/foo.com/var/log/httpd
total 6724
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 3 04:10 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 31 23:43 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 admin4 admin4 0 Nov 3 07:43 access_log
-rw-r--r-- 1 admin4 admin4 0 Nov 3 03:40 access_log.1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1869373 Oct 23 23:59 access_log.10-23-03
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3480183 Oct 24 23:59 access_log.10-24-03
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 27243 Nov 3 07:43 access_log.11-03-03
I notice that the access_log.11-03-03 is growing, and that the time and date
of the access_log file is updated whenenver there is an access.
I just went to some 404 pages, and the error_log is doing the same thing.
It is not growing, but it's time and date keeps being updated also.
There is 40 gigs of diskspace available.
I've tried restarting the web server, but this doesn't help.
Answer: The access_log.11-03-03 file is being created
by cronolog because you have FrontPage extensions on your site. If you
are not actually using the FrontPage extensions, you should probably
remove that feature, to eliminate the extra load of the cronolog
process in memory, and also the extra disk logs.
You apparently have a file permissions problem here.
To fix this problem:
- You'll need to log into your box as root
- Stop your web server with
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd stop
- Delete the empty log files, both the access_log, and the error_log file
- Restart your web server with
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start
Reader Replies: Thanks Garnet, that fixed my problem!
Do you have a tech support problem that you need help with? You
can contact Garnet with your problems.
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Garnet R. Chaney has been publishing websites since 1994, and
his company, The Web Mill, was a featured ISP in the first editions of
Laura Lemay's "Teach Yourself HTML in Seven Days". Mr. Chaney has been
involved with Linux since the days of the
Yggdrasil Linux Bible, the last time all the linux documentation could
still fit in a single book.
He is also a writer of parodies and commentator on social
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his parodies can not replace a meeting with your physician about your
health, or a meeting with an experienced technician about your
computer problems.
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