How To Install logrotate on CentOS 8

logrotate is Rotates, compresses, removes and mails system log files

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install logrotate on CentOS 8.

What is logrotate

The logrotate utility is designed to simplify the administration of log files on a system which generates a lot of log files. Logrotate allows for the automatic rotation compression, removal and mailing of log files. Logrotate can be set to handle a log file daily, weekly, monthly or when the log file gets to a certain size. Normally, logrotate runs as a daily cron job. Install the logrotate package if you need a utility to deal with the log files on your system.

We can use yum or dnf to install logrotate on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install logrotate.

Install logrotate on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install logrotate using dnf by running the following command:

sudo dnf -y install logrotate

Install logrotate on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install logrotate using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install logrotate

How To Uninstall logrotate on CentOS 8

To uninstall only the logrotate package we can use the following command:

sudo dnf remove logrotate

logrotate Package Contents on CentOS 8

/etc/cron.daily
/etc/cron.daily/logrotate
/etc/logrotate.conf
/etc/logrotate.d
/etc/logrotate.d/btmp
/etc/logrotate.d/wtmp
/etc/rwtab.d/logrotate
/usr/lib/.build-id
/usr/lib/.build-id/62
/usr/lib/.build-id/62/0770611fb2586f99b722af13432d6b0aec93b1
/usr/sbin/logrotate
/usr/share/doc/logrotate
/usr/share/doc/logrotate/ChangeLog.md
/usr/share/licenses/logrotate
/usr/share/licenses/logrotate/COPYING
/usr/share/man/man5/logrotate.conf.5.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/logrotate.8.gz
/var/lib/logrotate
/var/lib/logrotate/logrotate.status

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install logrotate on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.