I didn't know it all, but I do know that /etc/logrotate.conf and /etc/logrotate.d control, well, log rotation. ISTR that "In the old days" syslogd would use 2 criteria to decide whether to rotate the log - size of file and how long it had been since last rotation. I don't remember all the rules (like, if the file is zero length, does the rotation happen anyway, or not), but do remember that you could get a log rotated either because of size OR time. A perusal of /etc/logrotate.d/* will reveal a lot of interesting stuff... (Along with a man page perusal J) Notice that there are nifty 'commands' like 'rotate 10' and 'weekly' which tell syslogd to keep 10 's copies of the logs ('rotate 10'), and rotate the log files once per week ('weekly'), regardless of size. There are others, like 'compress' (to compress them), and 'delaycompress' which apparently does not compress the 2 most recent backup log files. So, this means that somewhere in the configuration you should find 'daily', 'compress', 'delaycompress', and 'rotate 8' being applied to /var/log/syslog. On a slightly different topic, I have found that some versions of 'less' will automatically decompress compressed files to text. Or at least, one time I mistakenly said 'less /var/log/syslog*' when some of them were zipped, and LO! I didn't see any binary junk - it decompressed them for me. YMMV! Rusty From: plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Michael Havens Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 9:17 PM To: Main PLUG discussion list Subject: Re: wireless stoped working thanj you Larry! On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 5:04 PM, Dazed_75 < > wrote: Its not a matter of time but of file size. Apparently gzip has (or had) some limitation it needed to honer before the file got to the limit. BTW, I found the easoest way to grep for something in one of the compressed archives was to use something like zcat /var/log/syslog.2.gz | grep cron | less Larry On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Stephen < > wrote: But you seem to have done that part allready. You can check timestamps to get a real sense of time logged. On May 8, 2012 10:44 PM, "Michael Havens" > wrote: So I get it.... it saves a total of 8 logs 6 of which are compressed and so how long is each log a record of? From my inspection of the log it seems as if it covers a little more than a day. Teach mw about this! I'm all ears! On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 10:26 PM, Michael Havens < > wrote: you guys are so helpful. Well, there is a /var/log/syslog and syslog.1 but after that it is syslog.2-7.gz, not 'z'. Does that sound right? Which is the most recent? On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Carruth, Rusty wrote: You should see syslog.0, syslog.1, etc. (possibly with .z on the end). Those are your older logs. rusty --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss -- :-)~MIKE~(-: -- :-)~MIKE~(-: --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss -- Dazed_75 a.k.a. Larry Please protect my address like I protect yours. When sending messages to multiple recipients, always use the BCC: (Blind carbon copy) and not To: or CC:. Remove all addresses from the message body before sending a Forwarded message. This can prevent spy programs capturing addresses from the recipient list and message body. --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss -- :-)~MIKE~(-: