EXICYCLOG(8)

💅 EXICYCLOG(8) — the "cycle exim's logfiles" era 💅

okay bestie, this is the exicyclog page from the System Manager's Manual (section 8, system admin girlies only 💖). buckle up, it's short but it's mighty.

✨ NAME ✨

exicyclog — Cycle exim's logfiles 🌀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

eximcyclog

yes that's literally how it's spelled in the synopsis, i am not the one who did that, i'm just the messenger 🫶

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so the exicyclog script is your girl for cycling (aka rotating) the mainlog and rejectlog files. slay.

not needed if you're only using syslog though — that's a whole different vibe. and some operating systems come with their own standard mechanisms for log cycling, which you can absolutely use instead of exicyclog if you prefer. it's giving "options, we love to see it" ✨

every single time exicyclog runs, the file names get shuffled down by one. so picture this: if the main log file name is mainlog (which is the default, no cap), then when exicyclog runs, mainlog becomes mainlog.01, the previous mainlog.01 becomes mainlog.02, and so on and so on, up to a limit that's set in the script, and that limit defaults to 10. reject logs get handled the same way, twins fr. 🫶

if no mainlog file exists, the script does literally nothing. like, no notes, it's just not her day. 😭 and the files that "drop off" the end? deleted. gone. they did not make the cut, bestie. 💀

all files with numbers greater than 01 are compressed, using a compression command that's configured by the COMPRESS_COMMAND setting in Local/Makefile. it's giving "go girl, give us compression" 🔥

the usual move is to run exicyclog daily from a root crontab entry of the form

 1 0 * * * su exim -c /usr/exim/bin/exicyclog

assuming you've used the name exim for the Exim user. and yes, you can run exicyclog as root if you wish, but there is no need. like, at all. put the root down. 🙈

😭 BUGS 😭

this manual page needs a major re-work. if somebody knows better groff than us and has more experience writing manual pages, any patches would be greatly appreciated. (not me begging, but also... literally begging 🥺)

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• exim(8)
• /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/

👑 AUTHOR 👑

this manual page was stitched together from spec.txt by Andreas Metzler <ametzler at downhill.at.eu.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). iconic behaviour, we love a generous author. 💜

and that's the whole page, bestie — written up in March 26, 2003 and living under the EXICYCLOG(8) header from the System Manager's Manual. periodt. 💅✨