Logrotate is not compressing

Question

I need to compress the files in var/log/remots/*/* with the following logrotate rule

/var/log/remots/*/* {
    rotate 178
    daily
    maxage 178
    compress
}

located in /etc/logrotate.d/remots.

I also have scripted and it looks like this.

cp rsyslog.conf /etc/rsyslog.conf
cp 10-remot.conf /etc/rsyslog.d/10-remot.conf
cp remots /etc/logrotate.d/remots

./rpgp.sh perms.txt

service rsyslog restart

However, when I force a logrotate with sudo logrotate -­d ­­--force /etc/logrotate.d/remots the log remains as plain text, is not compressed. The ouput is like a lot of messages like

renaming /var/log/remots/GSX/2019-03-25.2.gz to /var/log/remots/GSX/2019-03-25.3.gz (rotatecount 178, logstart 1, i 2)
renaming /var/log/remots/GSX/2019-03-25.1.gz to /var/log/remots/GSX/2019-03-25.2.gz (rotatecount 178, logstart 1, i 1),
renaming /var/log/remots/GSX/2019-03-25.0.gz to /var/log/remots/GSX/2019-03-25.1.gz (rotatecount 178, logstart 1, i 0),

and finally

/var/log/remots/GSX/2019-03-25.179.gz doesnt' exist -- wont't you try to dispose of it
renaming /var/log/remots/GSX/2019-03-25 to /var/log/remots/GSX(2019-03-25.1
compressing log with: /bin/gzip

PD: 10-remots.conf looks like

$template GuardaRemots, "/var/log/remots/%HOSTNAME%/%timegenerated:1:10:date-rfc3339%"
:source, !isequal, "localhost" -? GuardaRemots

and rsyslog.conf is just configurated to listen via UDP port 514

Answer 1

From what I can see, logrotate is getting confused. Firstly you should be more restrictive with your name pattern. Instead of rotating /var/log/remots/*/* you should rotate:

/var/log/remots/*/*.log {
    rotate 178
    daily
    maxage 178
    compress
}

When you change the config, remember to check /var/lib/logrotate/status. Remove any entries for .*gz files.

---

It's less common to mix logrotate with programs rotating their own logs. You have configured rsyslog to write to dated log files. It's more common to use a static file name and allow logrotate to append dates for you. I note others have had problems with the same type of setup: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8962477/logrotate-files-with-date-in-the-file-name

A simpler way to configure this is to write your "remots" (rsyslog) log to a static location such as:

$template GuardaRemots, "/var/log/remots/%HOSTNAME%.log"
:source, !isequal, "localhost" -? GuardaRemots

Then rotate:

/var/log/remots/*.log {
    rotate 178
    daily
    maxage 178
    compress
}

Logrotate will automatically append the date when it rotates.