There are a number of existing tools that can be used for logfile rotation (such as logrotate) and cleanup of old files (like tmpwatch). Those may or may not suit the purposes of the OP. If the requirement is to name the old log files based upon the date of the rotation, logrotate can accomplish that.

The problem with rolling your own log file rotation script, as with other system utilities is that you need to take other issues into account, such as making sure that removal of old files does not remove the wrong file (such as removing /etc/passwd when /var/log/messages is a symbolic link to it.) Does your rotation script need to rotate the logs when the disks are filling up? As imp said, the existing tools have been well-tested, whatever tool you write will also need to be tested carefully.

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.