to clear syslogs

[Veera.Rao]

how to clear the syslogs
which is stored in /var/adm/syslog/syslog/log.


and please tell me the command to clear the logs

[Pete Randall]

Usually a reboot of the system causes the contents of syslog to be moved to OLDsyslog.log and syslog itself to be nulled out. If you wish to do that without rebooting, simply do:

mv /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log /var/adm/syslog/OLDsyslog.log
> /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log

That will save syslog and then null it out for you.


Pete

[Veera.Rao]

Hi,

can i do it without rebooting the server

[Avinash20]

This could be done without reboot

Take backup of syslog.log if required
Trim it..
>/var/adm/syslog/syslog.log

[Veera.Rao]

can you please tell me how to trim.

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi:

you *don't* want to move ('mv') the log file; rather you want to *copy* it and then truncate the original. This keeps logging working into the originally named file and not the renamed backup!

# cp /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log.old
# cat /dev/null > /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log

Another way to do this is to do:

# /sbin/init.d/syslogd stop
# /sbin/init.d/syslogd start

Regards!

...JRF...

[Peter Nikitka]

Hi,

having trimmed a/the syslog-file(s), I recommend to inform a running syslogd about it via
kill -HUP `cat /var/run/syslog.pid`

You should get an entry in the new base syslog-file from syslog about a restart as well.

mfG Peter

[Patrick Wallek]

You can also run the syslogd stop/start script manually. Running this script will stop the syslog daemon, copy /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log to /var/adm/syslog/OLDsyslog.log, clean out syslog.log and then restart the syslog daemon.

After you run this, you can always rename OLDsyslog.log to something else if you desire.

# /sbin/init.d/syslogd stop

# /sbin/init.d/syslogd start

[Veera.Rao]

Hi,


Now my server is in production (LIVE).

if i stop and start the below script, is there any critical for running server.
kindly confirm and i will be very thankful to you all

# /sbin/init.d/syslogd stop
# /sbin/init.d/syslogd start

[James R. Ferguson]

hi (again):

> Now my server is in production (LIVE). if i stop and start the below script, is there any critical for running server?

No, this is absolutely safe. At most you might lose a few seconds of logged information while the 'syslogd' isn't active.

Regards!

...JRF...

[VK2COT]

Hello,

Interesting timing for this question :)

I am presenting a world-wide webinar at HP this week. The topics is:

Comparison of log file management tools in
AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, and Linux

I plan to release a public version of it
in next several months. It will be on
my home web page.

Cheers,

VK2COT

[Veera.Rao]

thanks all for the support