Using Linux's Logrotate to Manage Alert and Listener Log Files

If you are running Oracle on Linux, there is a handy little utility called logrotate that can be used to manage those unwieldy alert logs and listener logs.

I recently worked on a client's database, and their alert log had information going back four years. When trying to examine the log with vi, it would take several minutes to open the file due to it's enormity. To help them out, I used this simple little tool to keep the files in check.

As root, I simply created a new file in /etc/logrotate.d on each RAC node called ora_cleanup. The example below is from node 2. This will copy the alert log with a numerical extension and truncate the existing file. It performs this monthly and keeps 13 months worth of log information before deleting old files. The listener log grows much faster, so it is configured to rotate weekly and keep 53 weeks of files. The copytruncate parameter is important for the listener log because the listener process holds an open handle on the existing file.

# alert log
/u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/orcl/orcl2/trace/alert_orcl2.log {
monthly
rotate 13
notifempty
missingok
copytruncate
nocreate
}

# listener log
/u01/app/asm/diag/tnslsnr/db102/listener_db102/trace/listener_db102.log {
weekly
rotate 53
notifempty
missingok
copytruncate
nocreate
}

After a few months, this is what the managed files look like in their directories.

$ cd /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/orcl/orcl2/trace
$ ls -arltp alert_orcl2*
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall 50051579 Oct 10 15:17 alert_orcl2.log.5
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall   993219 Nov  1 04:02 alert_orcl2.log.4
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  1124244 Dec  1 04:02 alert_orcl2.log.3
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  1088332 Jan  1 04:02 alert_orcl2.log.2
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  2163268 Feb  1 04:02 alert_orcl2.log.1
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall   279484 Feb  7 09:34 alert_orcl2.log

$ cd /u01/app/asm/diag/tnslsnr/db102/listener_db102/trace
$ ls -arltp listener_db102*
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall 3857048716 Oct 10 15:28 listener_db102.log.18
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  196362891 Oct 18 13:13 listener_db102.log.17
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall   40298571 Oct 20 04:02 listener_db102.log.16
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  178408740 Oct 27 04:02 listener_db102.log.15
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  188301497 Nov  3 04:02 listener_db102.log.14
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  185073120 Nov 10 04:02 listener_db102.log.13
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  178345071 Nov 17 04:02 listener_db102.log.12
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  178945914 Nov 24 04:02 listener_db102.log.11
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  165829858 Dec  1 04:02 listener_db102.log.10
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  179395363 Dec  8 04:02 listener_db102.log.9
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  175671704 Dec 15 04:02 listener_db102.log.8
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  195136727 Dec 22 04:02 listener_db102.log.7
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  195512012 Dec 29 04:02 listener_db102.log.6
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  201759600 Jan  5 04:02 listener_db102.log.5
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  204589312 Jan 12 04:02 listener_db102.log.4
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  213276652 Jan 19 04:02 listener_db102.log.3
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  212229296 Jan 26 04:02 listener_db102.log.2
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  211244326 Feb  2 04:02 listener_db102.log.1
-rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall  159275570 Feb  7 09:35 listener_db102.log