Create log file periodically ex: hourly

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello,

I have a command which runs continuously and creates output to STDOUT. Now, in unix, if I create logging for this command, it would create a single log file and keep on updating. As there is so much data filled in it, I would want to break the log files periodically. In this instance, say if I want to break the log files every hour, how can I do that?

Thanks in advance!

2

you can rename the logfile every hour by adding time stamp to the name of file . as per your requirement define the $time variable using date command. cron can be used to schedule it every hr.

ex - mv system.log system.log.$time

3

thanks for the information!

I was able to proceed as you mentioned.

4

hello,

i was able to do it but then i do not want to run the process/restart the process every hour.

if i start the process now, let it run for the whole day and I would like to create hourly logs without restarting.

is there a way?

5

Try this...

#!/bin/bash
#logger.sh script

log_file=/tmp/process.log
tmp_log_file=/tmp/process.log.$$

while true
do
        sleep 3600
        cp $log_file $tmp_log_file
        >$log_file
        mv $tmp_log_file $log_file.$(date +%d%m%Y_%H%M)
done

If interested, you can cron this script to be executed every one hour...

--ahamed