How to Configure Logrotate for Custom Applications

By Admin · Feb 25, 2026 · Updated Apr 23, 2026 · 234 views · 1 min read

What Is Logrotate?

Logrotate is a utility that automatically rotates, compresses, and removes old log files. Without it, log files grow indefinitely and consume all disk space.

Default Configuration

# Global settings
cat /etc/logrotate.conf

# Per-application configs
ls /etc/logrotate.d/

Create a Custom Configuration

Create /etc/logrotate.d/myapp:

/var/log/myapp/*.log {
    daily
    rotate 14
    compress
    delaycompress
    missingok
    notifempty
    create 0640 www-data www-data
    sharedscripts
    postrotate
        systemctl reload myapp > /dev/null 2>&1 || true
    endscript
}

Key Directives

Directive	Meaning
`daily/weekly/monthly`	Rotation frequency
`rotate 14`	Keep 14 rotated files
`compress`	Gzip old log files
`delaycompress`	Compress previous rotation, not current
`missingok`	Don't error if log is missing
`notifempty`	Don't rotate empty files
`create`	Create new log file with specified permissions
`copytruncate`	Truncate original file after copy (apps that don't reopen files)
`size 100M`	Rotate when file reaches 100 MB

Test Configuration

# Dry run (show what would happen)
sudo logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.d/myapp

# Force rotation
sudo logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.d/myapp

Size-Based Rotation

/var/log/myapp/access.log {
    size 100M
    rotate 5
    compress
    missingok
    copytruncate
}