Catalina.out file is too large

Products

• CA Release Automation - Release Operations Center (Nolio)

Issue/Introduction

File <RA_HOME>/logs/catalina.out could becomes very huge (several GB).

Is it possible to purge this file and how to control its size ?

 

Example :

The file catalina.out has a size of 5.2 GB :

 

ls -al /opt/ReleaseAutomation/logs/catalina.out
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5672242795 Feb  3 11:39 logs/catalina.out

Environment

Release Automation 6.7 on Linux

Resolution

The file could be emptied with a command like this

 

echo > <RA_HOME>/logs/catalina.out

 

Example :

echo > /opt/ReleaseAutomationServer/logs/catalina.out

 

 

Unfortunately there is no control of size and no rotation system of catalina.out file in Release Automation. Its size could grow without limit.

A solution could be to use the Linux tool logrotate to rotate the file catalina.out.

See: https://dzone.com/articles/how-rotate-tomcat-catalinaout

 

Example :

- Create the file /etc/logrotate.d/nolio containing :

/opt/ReleaseAutomationServer/logs/catalina.out {
   copytruncate
   daily
   rotate 7
   compress
   missingok
   size 100M
}

Adapt the path of this file with correct path.

This will rotate the file catalina.out with 7 files of 100 MB

Additional Information

- The file catalina.out could grow with a average of 3.6 MB more per day.

- If the file /etc/cron.daily/logrotate does not exist, maybe execution is scheduled with systemctl

# systemctl list-timers

NEXT                        LEFT          LAST                        PASSED       UNIT                         ACTIVATES
Thu 2023-02-02 21:53:15 UTC 5h 51min left Thu 2023-02-02 15:53:15 UTC 8min ago     google-oslogin-cache.timer   google-oslogin-cache.service
Fri 2023-02-03 00:00:00 UTC 7h left       Thu 2023-02-02 00:00:00 UTC 16h ago      logrotate.timer              logrotate.service
Fri 2023-02-03 00:00:00 UTC 7h left       Thu 2023-02-02 00:00:00 UTC 16h ago      mandb.timer                  mandb.service
Fri 2023-02-03 00:14:15 UTC 8h left       Thu 2023-02-02 01:35:15 UTC 14h ago      check-battery.timer          check-battery.service
Fri 2023-02-03 01:18:26 UTC 9h left       Thu 2023-02-02 00:18:59 UTC 15h ago      backup-rpmdb.timer           backup-rpmdb.service
Fri 2023-02-03 01:44:47 UTC 9h left       Thu 2023-02-02 01:02:43 UTC 14h ago      backup-sysconfig.timer       backup-sysconfig.service
Fri 2023-02-03 10:12:32 UTC 18h left      Thu 2023-02-02 10:12:32 UTC 5h 49min ago systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
Mon 2023-02-06 00:03:13 UTC 3 days left   Mon 2023-01-30 01:39:00 UTC 3 days ago   fstrim.timer                 fstrim.service

8 timers listed.

 

# systemctl status logrotate.timer

● logrotate.timer - Daily rotation of log files
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/logrotate.timer; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (waiting) since Thu 2023-01-19 09:52:10 UTC; 2 weeks 0 days ago
    Trigger: Fri 2023-02-03 00:00:00 UTC; 7h left
   Triggers: ● logrotate.service
       Docs: man:logrotate(8)
             man:logrotate.conf(5)

Jan 19 09:52:10 xxx systemd[1]: Started Daily rotation of log files