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I have a Postfix mail server running on Ubuntu 8.10 and when /var/log/mail.log or any other file reaches exactly 2GB of data syslog stops writing any data to the file.

Is there some kind of limit for a file logged through syslog?

I'm discussing with my colleagues if we should be doing an hourly logrotate on the files in question, and hoping that will stop them from hitting this limit. If we have 2-3 hours worth of log files it should be enough when they're this large to find any large problems.

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Best answer to this is: The limit is a Linux "problem" and not a syslog problem. See the right answer here: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/VALinux-kb/2gb-filesize-limit.html

And an extra good advise: Update your Ubuntu. It's way too old. And for a production server it is a very high security risk. Upgrade at least to Ubuntu 10.4.

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  • Oh it's a PROBLEM not a "problem" :-)
    – voretaq7
    Aug 3, 2011 at 17:09
  • No. It is a LIMIT not a PROBLEM.
    – mailq
    Aug 3, 2011 at 17:11
  • All limits are problems lying in wait to be discovered - even the 8ZB (yes, with a Z) limit in BSD UFS will eventually be a problem. Lower limit values just get discovered and declared problematic sooner/by more people.
    – voretaq7
    Aug 3, 2011 at 18:08
  • Yes. But you can't say "but I want to!" when trying to set the value 666 to a byte variable.
    – mailq
    Aug 3, 2011 at 18:13
  • I think a better analogy is a "last name" field that only allows 7 characters because the developer's last name was "Johnson" (2GB because that's the limit of a 32-bit signed value). Along I come with my 8 letter last name (or 4GB DVD rip), and I am horribly inconvenienced by this seemingly-to-me-though-not-really-to-the-designer arbitrary limit. I can agree to disagree on the evils of limits though :)
    – voretaq7
    Aug 3, 2011 at 18:38
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Are you running on 32 bits? If so, take a look at 2GB file size limit.

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