Log files are important because they provide better insight into what is happening on a system. The debugging and error messages in a log can be used to track down the source of a problem and resolve it quickly. Authentication messages maintain a record of who accessed the system and when, and repeated authentication failures can be a sign that an attacker is trying to gain unauthorized access. However, the usefulness of logs typically diminishes with age, and chatty applications that generate a lot of log entries could, if left unchecked, easily consume all of the system's storage resources. This recipe will show you how to rotate the log files to prevent the files from growing out of control and stale logs from wasting space.
This recipe requires a CentOS system with a working network connection. Administrative privileges are also required either by logging in with the root account or through the use of sudo.