1.4 Global period file structure

Global structure of a period-config file is:

     out-of-block-definitions
     
     configuration-block-1-start {
       block-contents
     }
     
     configuration-block-2-start {
       block-contents
     }

Comments may appear anywhere in the config file as long as the first non-whitespace character on the line is a #.

At the beginning of all the period related config files (exactly before, and out of, all configuration blocks) all options from the main rc config file can be used. So it can define period-related default values and override its values inside per-logfile block definitions.

Here is another out-of-block definition:

     include CONFIGFILE[,CONFIGFILE,...]

This option includes specified files as if they were written at the end of configuration file. Nested includes are not supported. The configfile must be an absolute filename, or a filename with the * wildcard. To include all files in a directory, the search path must be used path-to-dir/* (i.e. /etc/rottlog/monthly.d/*). If this line is too long, a \ character can be inserted at the end of the line, continuing on the following line.

A configuration-block-n-start is a list of one, or more, comma separated filenames to be archived, or rotated. A configuration block for a set of filenames, all stored in a single dir, can be used: path-to-dir/* (i.e. /var/adm/apachelogs/*). If a filename contains special characters like ] or @{ you must protect them from expansion with a double slash (i.e. apache\\[1\\].log). If the same logfile is used more than one time in the same configuration file, it will be used in only the first defined block.

All expanded filenames will be checked to not have an extension contained in the def_taboo_ext variable. See tabooext, for more informations.