Re: logs rapidly fill /var partition
>
> On Sat, 2004-01-24 at 09:54, Haines Brown wrote:
> > When I run the command $ sudo rm -rf /mirror/partition, the activity
> > is logged to /var/log/kern.log, syslog, and debug log.
> >
> > The problem is that each of these logs ends up 120 Mb in size and the
> > remaining space in my 500 Mb /var partition quickly disappears.
> >
> > I need to know if this logging activity of this size is expected, and
> > if so, what I might do about it. Increasing the partition size of /var
> > partition I'd like to avoid. Because if the rm runs into trouble, I'm
> > likey to know about it without the logs, and so a cron job run in
> > parallel to periodically delete the logs is a possibility, but there
> > must be a better way.
...
> > Jan 24 04:57:41 teufel kernel: usb-storage: act_altsettting is 0
> > Jan 24 04:57:41 teufel kernel: usb-storage: id_index calculated to be: 81
...
I studied the possibility of modyfying /etc/syslog.conf, but did not
see that one can reduce verbosity. However, is the above example a
debug message? If so, I could kill kernel debug messages with
syslog.conf.
However, I really hestitate to do it. I can do without usb-storage
debug messages, but kernel debug messages seem too important.
This brings me to the suggestion that the sub-storage module might be
reconfigured so that it does not send out debug messages. But it
strikes me as odd that a default behavior that generates such hugh
(360Mb) logs has not been troubling to others, many of whom can't
dedicate a gig or more to /var (and 2 Gb would be calling it close if
each of the 5 backup copies of these logs were equally big). I can't
believe most folks using usb-storage have 2 Gb /var partitions. That's
why I suspect verbose debugging may not be default for the module.
I suppose I could add a command to the script I use to put material
into mass storage that would periodically visit the /var partitiion
and delete the three logs if over a certain size. But this seems a
messy hack.
Haines Brown
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