How to trim the logfiles with active process writing to?

[Aldis Black]

Hi all, I am trying to zero the size of long running session logs from rootsh, but it seems to be impossible untill the process is active. I tried to run cat /dev/null > but the logsize remains unchanged. Any ideas on how to deal with this?

Thanks, Aldis

[R.K. #]

Hi..

How about using only the ">" symbol.
Eg.
# > /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log

[Aldis Black]

Nope. Still the same.

[Prashantj]

Hi Aldis,

#!/bin/sh
export today=`date -u +%b%d`
cd /var/adm/syslog
#
cat syslog.log |grep Logging |mailx -s "trim syslog" root
# Copy active file to old directory
cat syslog.log >./old.syslog/$today.syslog
cat mail.log >./old.maillog/$today.maillog
# Initialize active file
>syslog.log
>mail.log
# Delete file(s) older than 120 days from old directory
find /var/adm/syslog/old.syslog/ -mtime +120 -exec rm {} \;
find /var/adm/syslog/old.maillog/ -mtime +120 -exec rm {} \;

Hope this will help you.

Prashant

[Aldis Black]

Hi Prashant, Unfortunately it doesn't help as the commands used in the script (>logfile) seem to be not working on my logs as discussed above.

[R.K. #]

Hi Again,

Try copying /dev/null over the log file. Also see if you can find any option in sam.

Refer:
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1033864

[Prashantj]

Hi Aldis,

Can u share the output of below commands

1)pwd ( where '>'not working )
2)echo $SHELL
3)ll /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log
4)id
5)check bdf output, if any filsystem reach 99%


Prashant

[Aldis Black]

Hi R.K. # ,

the cp /dev/null does not work here as well. Strange thing is that right after running any of the previously mentioned commands the filesize changes to zero bytes for a few seconds and then goes back to the previous value... any clue?

[R.K. #]

What is this log file actually related to?
Any application or OS?

[Dennis Handly]

>then goes back to the previous value... any clue?

If the writer is tracking where he thinks the file position is and writes to that position, you can't change that.