/var/log/messages file 2.6 GB!!!

[Infamy]

I noticed that my / partition was full, so I started to dig around, and noticed that my messages log was 2.6 GB of text.

log # ls -hl
total 2.6G
-rw-r--r-- 1 root users 48K Apr 25 21:52 XFree86.0.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root users 53K Apr 24 01:30 XFree86.0.log.old
-rw-r--r-- 1 root users 50K Jul 30 10:59 Xorg.0.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root users 49K Jul 28 18:52 Xorg.0.log.old
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Mar 1 14:53 cups
-rw-rw---- 1 portage portage 605K Aug 2 16:21 emerge.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 61K Jul 31 00:24 genkernel.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 286K Jul 28 18:54 lastlog
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6.7K Apr 22 00:04 log.nmbd
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.9K Apr 21 21:27 log.smbd
-rw------- 1 root root 2.6G Aug 1 03:28 messages


Is there a way to limit the size of this file so that it doesn't use all of my disk space?


Thanks,

Infamy

[br0mGreV]

the "classic" solution to avoid that kind of issue it to create a different partition for /var/ mount point, so that you system don't get stuck if you get to much messages

A line in your cron can fit for a while

At last, you can use quota to regulate your /var/log directory.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-security.xml#doc_chap6_sect3

[El_Presidente_Pufferfish]

Maybe find out whats spouting all those errors?

[pjp]

The installation guide briefly discusses a system logger. You should read up on the logger you installed and learn how to configure it for log rotation.
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[think4urs11]

Depending on whether you are using syslog or syslog-ng you might want to have a look onto logrotate or the build-in capabilities syslog-ng has (remove_if_older())

And of course - take a look into the file for the reasons why its getting this huge (in which timeframe btw?).

HTH
T.
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[GenKreton]

If thats your only log file and you don't split it up a simple cron job could be easier than logrotate.

But thats a LOT of messages. Unless you've been running that system for a hell of a long time I would take a minute to find anything odd in there.

[Infamy]

Thanks for the response, I will look into these options. A large portion of the text in the log dealt with i2c, which I have since uninstalled. Hopefully a combination of both will help

Thank you,

Infamy

[Kow]

I found a bug once, in the kernel source where a module was outputting stuff that didnt need to be to what gets logged, it had to do with mouse movements and keyboard buttons being pressed - everytime I moved the mouse and keyboard it logged what was pressed, and that was with no special configuration for debug at all, or no extra logging options. In fact, it was a brand new install and I hadnt even gotten to the point of customizing. I think I got at least a 1 gig log file in a day -- depending upon how often I was using the computer.

That was a long time ago now, a year ago probably.
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-Kow

[Infamy]

lol

[perseguidor]

This is slightly offtopic, but this same thing happened to me the other day and I rejoiced at the 1:1000+ ratio bzip2 offers in this kind of setting
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