A few weeks ago I replaced "syslog" with "syslog-ng" plus "logrotate" using the Gentoo supplied _default config_ files (everything to /var/log/message, rotated weekly). Big surprise when looking into /var/log/messages.?.gz for the first time! All lines are re-formatted to a fixed length of 66 chars. The original line breaks are removed, split words are _hyphenated_ (ridiculous)! The current /var/log/message looks completely normal. So "logrotate" is the most likely culprit. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. tower(s1) root # emerge info Portage 2.0.49-r3 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.2, glibc-2.3.1-r4, 2.4.19) ================================================================= System uname: 2.4.19 i686 Pentium III (Coppermine) ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=pentium3 -O3 -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /var/qmail/control /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/3.1/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium3 -O3 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="sandbox ccache autoaddcvs fixpackages" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/gentoo/ http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 oss avi crypt cups foomaticdb gif jpeg libg++ mad mikmod mmx mpeg ncurses nls pdflib png spell truetype xml2 xmms xv zlib alsa gdbm berkdb slang readline arts svga tcltk java guile X sdl gpm tcpd pam libwww ssl perl python esd imlib oggvorbis gnome gtk qt kde motif opengl mozilla cdr doc gtk2 nhc98 nocardbus oav rage128 samba snmp sse tiff usb -3dnow -apm -encode -quicktime -tetex" ====================================================== * app-admin/logrotate Latest version available: 3.6.5-r1 Latest version installed: 3.6.5-r1 * app-admin/syslog-ng Latest version available: 1.6.0_rc3-r1 Latest version installed: 1.6.0_rc3-r1 * sys-apps/gzip Latest version available: 1.3.3-r2 Latest version installed: 1.3.3-r2
I have the same version of the three packages you list installed myself and the log files are rotated as expected with no change to the log contents. When you say, "when looking into /var/log/messages..." what do you mean? What did you use to look at the files? Also, please attach the contents of your logrotate.conf as a text attachment please so I can verify that we are running the same thing. Thanks.
Replying to Comment #1 --- I used Midnight Commander's internal file viewer (function key F3) to look into the log files. It has never let me down before - but this time it DID :-(( The log files are _OK_ and I have to _withdraw_ this bug report. I'm awfully sorry. Just to show you how treacherous this thing is---- /var/log/messages is shown correctly (variable length lines) /var/log/messages.<n>.gz is shown re-formatted (fixed length lines, split words hyphenated). (<n> is a number.) I even tried the "Raw Data" toggle (F8), but this showed the gzipped file bytewise (garbage). After reading your comment #1 I gunzipped the old logs manually to bypass the auto-unzip function of mc's viewer but /var/log/messages.<n> was still shown re-formatted.... But when I hit the "Raw Data" button (F8) the text just reverted to _normal_. I renamed a few other text files to <file>.<n> and got the same effect! I confirmed the correctness of the compressed log files using Konqueror->Ark->Kate. They look crisp & healthy;-) Midnight Commander uses file extensions to filter files for viewing. And <file>.<n>[.gz] looks like a [compressed] _man page_, which has a fixed width and hyphenated split words on the right hand margin. I'll dig into mc's extension definition file "mc.ext" to see whether it is a bug or just a weakness of concept. Thank you for your fast response, and for putting me on the right track.
Great! I'm glad you figured it out and are back to viewing unmangled log files again. ;-) I'll go ahead and close this bug as INVALID then.
