UNSOLVED Safe to truncate /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/* when large disk consumer?
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Hello,
I noticed in doing some disk space checks on my server, that the Cloudron Logs directory is 4 GB in size, which seems excessively large to me and unnecessary. Is it safe to run something like
rm -rf /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/*to clear it up again? Or will that cause issues with Cloudron?I would prefer to clear this up before I do a migration to a new server if possible. And the 4 GB size seems like low-hanging fruit to sort of "spring clean" the server a little bit.
Here's the complete output, if that helps at all:
<user>@my:~$ sudo du -ch -d 1 /home/yellowtent/platformdata/ | sort -hr 6.7G total 6.7G /home/yellowtent/platformdata/ 4.0G /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs 1.8G /home/yellowtent/platformdata/mysql 519M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/mongodb 355M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/graphite 89M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/postgresql 46M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/backup 7.5M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/redis 724K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/nginx 164K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/update 132K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/collectd 36K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logrotate.d 32K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/addons 8.0K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/acmeSide note: The command shows 6.7 GB total for Platform Data, but the Cloudron GUI shows 6.4 GB, it's missing about 300 MB in its calculation, I think. Nothing big, but I assumed they'd be the same numbers shown.
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That should all be getting
logrotate-d to some extent, depending on the subdirectory. Configs are in/home/yellowtent/platformdata/logrotate.dif you want to have a peek but generally those should be getting rotated off pretty fast. A couple gigs isn't super unusual in my experience, but the bulk of that is likely app logs. AFAIK, there's not really any harm to dropping out logs other than the fact that you won't have them, but have a look at the breakdown inside the logs directory - all the logs/{UUID} folders are the app ones and likely of only marginal utility to keep, depending on your needs. -
I think you can also run
logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.confto trigger instant rotation. But in general, feel free to truncate the log files manually as well. -
I ran the
logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.confcommand as suggested, and it went from 4.1 GB (this morning) for logs to 1.7 GB, so removed around 60% of it roughly. Personally I still think 1.7 GB is a lot (I mean it's just plain text files), but much more reasonable than over 4 GB, lol.I then looked into the logrotate.conf file contents, and I see this:
<user>@my:~$ cat /etc/logrotate.conf # see "man logrotate" for details # rotate log files weekly weekly # use the syslog group by default, since this is the owning group # of /var/log/syslog. su root syslog # keep 4 weeks worth of backlogs rotate 4 # create new (empty) log files after rotating old ones create # uncomment this if you want your log files compressed #compress # packages drop log rotation information into this directory include /etc/logrotate.d # no packages own wtmp, or btmp -- we'll rotate them here /var/log/wtmp { missingok monthly create 0664 root utmp rotate 1 } /var/log/btmp { missingok monthly create 0660 root utmp rotate 1 } # system-specific logs may be configured here include /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logrotate.dI then checked the /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logrotate.d/ directory and found ones for basically each app (but only 5 apps in my case, not the 20+ I'm running... is that sign of an issue? Makes me wonder if some apps are logging indefinitely if there's no logrotate set for them...), along with platform and box, etc.
Here's an example of one of the 5 apps set in that logrotate.d directory:
<user>@my:~$ cat /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logrotate.d/3167ef7d-e4c2-4072-8e11-8de49c5db970 # Generated by apptask # keep upto 7 rotated logs. rotation triggered daily or ahead of time if size is > 1M /var/lib/docker/volumes/1db1c5dda83ebf58f62348adcc965eca2ad82585ee912ae0dabc9a06dc3f30a2/_data/*.log /var/lib/docker/volumes/1db1c5dda83ebf58f62348adcc965eca2ad82585ee912ae0dabc9a06dc3f30a2/_data/*/*.log /var/lib/docker/volumes/1db1c5dda83ebf58f62348adcc965eca2ad82585ee912ae0dabc9a06dc3f30a2/_data/*/*/*.log { rotate 7 daily compress maxsize 1M missingok delaycompress # this truncates the original log file and not the rotated one copytruncate } /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/3167ef7d-e4c2-4072-8e11-8de49c5db970/*.log { # only keep one rotated file, we currently do not send that over the api rotate 1 size 10M missingok # we never compress so we can simply tail the files nocompress # this truncates the original log file and not the rotated one copytruncate }The above makes it sound like there should be very little disk usage of the app logs, basically seven 1 MB files and/or one 10 MB file, right? Or have I misread that?
I guess I'm just questioning the whole logs setup... in my opinion over 4 GB is overkill for logs (4 GB of plain text is a LOT of text!), and when running logrotate it brought it to a more reasonable (but still a little high IMO) 1.7 GB in size. Then when I look at logrotate.d custom log rotates set by Cloudron, it seems to only include a few apps and most of my apps are missing from the directory which is a red flag to me... is that expected behaviour?
PS - I realize 4 GB isn't a ton of disk space in the big picture, but I am required to run my servers in Canada and we have far fewer options here, and in many cases (like OVH) the disk space offered is quite low. So 4 GB out of a 50 GB disk offered at OVH for example is basically 1/12th of the disk consumption. Of course I could use something like DigitalOcean but they charge in USD which after conversion is almost double the price of OVH for a comparable specced system, so my choices are limited unfortunately, so several GB of stuff is a larger deal for me than it admittedly may be to most, and I certainly can apreciate that maybe it seems like I'm nitpicking on the logs in that sense. Just trying to do what I can with what I have since disk space is a bit limited in Canada pricing-wise.
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Dustin Dauncey
www.d19.ca -
@d19dotca you're not wrong. I asked about this in the past and we do need much better log hygiene and settings that add up.
@staff can also reflect on how many logs they need while troubleshooting and think about a separate compressed retention setting for those who need to keep 3|6|9 months of logs.
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I have to admin I haven't thought about how much logs to retain. It really depends on the app and the incident to determine how much longs one needs. The current settings are simply values that seemed reasonable.
@d19dotca It is not correct that only some of the apps have logrotate configs. Can you pick some missing app and then go to Location view and click save? This will re-create the logrotate config for them. BTW, is this after a full server restore? Maybe there is some bug here.
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@girish Yeah I definitely think there's room for improvement there. Personally I think I'd set the default to be whatever you most often see being reported (or more specifically how quickly you see it being reported). I.e. do you see issues being reported from a month or two ago? Or do you see them usually being reported within hours to a week of the incident noted in the logs? I'd assume the latter, meaning we likely don't need to be keeping so many logs. And then when there's a rare issue that comes up where we need more logs, the person reporting it can simply make that quick change in the logrotate.conf file to help you guys out to debug more. That's my two cents anyways. Personally I don't think there's any use in keeping logs for more than a few days to a week in most cases.
Glad to know that there should be a folder for each app. I definitely only have 5 in there right now which isn't even close to the ~20 I have running, so I will try that out on a few and get back to you then if that helps at all.
The last time I would have restored this particular server would have been last summer sometime, so I would hope that'd have been fixed by now over time if there was a bug in there since almost every app has been updated since then too. Maybe app package updates need to also trigger that process to ensure it has a custom logrotate directory for itself?
I'll update once I've tested that more. Thanks for the help, Girish.
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Dustin Dauncey
www.d19.ca -
@d19dotca said in Safe to truncate /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/* when large disk consumer?:
Glad to know that there should be a folder for each app
There's a config file for each app btw and not a folder. It will like <appid>.conf
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@girish Ah sorry, wrong terminology on my part. Thanks for clarifying.
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@girish Okay... I think I found a possible root cause of the issue (though it shouldn't be a big deal long-term, would only impact why I saw only 5 apps yesterday)... I believe the root cause is when an app has a pending update (the green up arrow next to it) then the logrotate mysteriously disappears. Here's why I feel this way and my detailed testing and investigation here...
- I forced the logrotate again today and it somehow cleared up another large batch of space, taking it from the leftover nearly 2 GB yesterday to just under 600 MB today.
ubuntu@my:~$ sudo du -ch -d 1 /home/yellowtent/platformdata/ | sort -hr 3.3G total 3.3G /home/yellowtent/platformdata/ 1.8G /home/yellowtent/platformdata/mysql 592M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs 522M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/mongodb 358M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/graphite 89M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/postgresql 7.6M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/redis 724K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/nginx 164K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/update 128K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/collectd 116K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/backup 104K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logrotate.d 32K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/addons 8.0K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/acme- Realized that when I listed out the /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logrotate.d/ directory, I suddenly had many more app configs listed in there than there was yesterday. Yesterday there was 5 apps only, today there were many (if not all of them at quick glance):
ubuntu@my:~$ ls -alh /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logrotate.d/ total 108K drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Feb 9 04:22 . drwxr-xr-x 15 yellowtent yellowtent 4.0K Dec 9 04:03 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:13 0e55f920-98bd-4ff6-b591-7254c28451c0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:22 11c6fe46-82ff-4ea4-b816-3b78a962d048 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:14 1c4fd6e4-09ed-4628-a2f4-0938312536f5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:13 24bff5cf-736c-49a2-a0aa-87e59131c4b6 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:12 28f810a3-2d17-4e45-b0f8-e581528ac4ba -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:10 3167ef7d-e4c2-4072-8e11-8de49c5db970 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:08 38f883dc-4047-4237-a6a1-3ecd77efcde9 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:09 47164e82-f1d2-4fae-9959-507062614906 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:14 83d329e1-6571-46e5-b14f-07477b8f2aac -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 3 04:00 8732aed0-273e-49f5-837f-cd9c600bf7b9 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 3 04:00 9fdedb7f-1bd4-42f6-a7e8-9831df9da8dd -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:12 b6fa7dcd-1d93-4786-82e0-90a634f8c3a7 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:09 be3840f0-458e-4bd8-8d18-34120ebdfce4 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 230 Feb 2 16:21 box -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:15 c6a63a87-aa45-4281-b4ad-e65c85817f5d -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:15 cf1d5c7c-d4f0-4c32-ada8-e25ab025bd3d -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:09 d0d6e4ea-36e2-42df-ae47-c59a6d5bf60d -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:14 d2df514f-18f6-4e4e-84a1-69bd6360765c -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:14 d2e46149-3287-4944-8e86-1c9a03e12641 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:14 dc527d19-aced-44fa-bae1-a0b22c358a44 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:12 de175741-ee83-4085-b04f-a0048cbdf493 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 3 04:00 ea2ee30a-8d3b-4a3b-8817-19b0f1e17bd7 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:13 f1fe6d67-0897-4063-bc76-0ef7256bac7a -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 946 Feb 9 04:14 f2dbde27-0159-4e28-803e-7a3fc21450fb -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.1K Feb 2 16:21 platform- Digged further into the logs usage and found that one app in particular was using significantly more than the rest:
ubuntu@my:~$ sudo du -ch -d 1 /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs | sort -hr 592M total 592M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs 204M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/d3121e48-4196-48fe-907d-ee831e11ce5c 76M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/e50f78c7-da6e-4036-a1a3-0cc934448cf1 72M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/e18fa18b-b176-4b25-bf78-4d82c022b0f5 37M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/c40f9f5f-037c-4a1d-8538-f1f4d4b82f5d 22M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/turn 11M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/f1fe6d67-0897-4063-bc76-0ef7256bac7a 11M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/11c6fe46-82ff-4ea4-b816-3b78a962d048 11M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/0e55f920-98bd-4ff6-b591-7254c28451c0 9.8M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/1c4fd6e4-09ed-4628-a2f4-0938312536f5 9.6M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/47164e82-f1d2-4fae-9959-507062614906 9.4M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/f2dbde27-0159-4e28-803e-7a3fc21450fb 9.1M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/c6a63a87-aa45-4281-b4ad-e65c85817f5d 8.6M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/dc527d19-aced-44fa-bae1-a0b22c358a44 8.5M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/d2e46149-3287-4944-8e86-1c9a03e12641 8.4M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/d0d6e4ea-36e2-42df-ae47-c59a6d5bf60d 8.1M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/492b4264-fea8-4d52-bbe6-1f15ce72c53a 7.2M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/mail- I noticed that app d3121e48-4196-48fe-907d-ee831e11ce5c was the Radicale card/calDAV app. I then checked the list of logrotate app configs and sure enough that one was missing from the list as you can see above in #2.
- I followed the steps suggested by @girish and that was then successful in creating the new logrotate for Radicale app, and then I ran logrotate again and it of course cleared even more space now. This lead me to see the following usage afterwards (took the Radicale log usage from 204 MB to 53 MB now):
ubuntu@my:~$ sudo du -ch -d 1 /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs | sort -hr 272M total 272M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs 76M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/e50f78c7-da6e-4036-a1a3-0cc934448cf1 72M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/e18fa18b-b176-4b25-bf78-4d82c022b0f5 53M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/d3121e48-4196-48fe-907d-ee831e11ce5c 37M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/c40f9f5f-037c-4a1d-8538-f1f4d4b82f5d 8.1M /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/492b4264-fea8-4d52-bbe6-1f15ce72c53a 368K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/turn 136K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/f1fe6d67-0897-4063-bc76-0ef7256bac7a 88K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/24bff5cf-736c-49a2-a0aa-87e59131c4b6 76K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/1c4fd6e4-09ed-4628-a2f4-0938312536f5 64K /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/mail- I then looked at the new #1 consumer app ID e50f78c7-da6e-4036-a1a3-0cc934448cf1 which was associated to Matomo, and it too was missing a logrotate config file.
I realized at this point that Matomo had an app update associated with it currently in my Dashboard. Yesterday when I only saw 5 apps, the vast majority of the apps at that time also had updates pending (WordPress makes up around 12-15 of my app instances, then Roundcube was one, plus Bitwarden was another, so had roughly 14-17 or so apps with pending updates at that time which I then updated last night). This makes me suspicious that possibly an app having a pending app update somehow removes it's logrotate configuration file. It kind of explains why I only saw a few apps listed yesterday, as well as why it recovered so much more disk space today when all those apps were updated last night and today their logrotates suddenly existed again. To be fair though, it doesn't explain why Radicale didn't have one today as Radicale hasn't been updated in a while and no pending app updates for it, so that's the one app that goes against my theory.
Either way... I see issues here with missing logrotate configs. And that's of course on top of the disk space concern, however I suppose if everything was running properly with logrotate my main concern may be a moot point by then. So the root cause of all of all of this may simply be missing logrotate configurations for apps.
I should add... I haven't updated Matomo yet, in case the Cloudron team wanted to connect to my server to do that update and see if logrotate suddenly exists afterwards, in case that helps at all with troubleshooting.
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Dustin Dauncey
www.d19.ca -
@d19dotca Thanks for the details analysis! So, after you report I decided to look into some of the Cloudrons I have access to and indeed logrotate configs for some apps are missing. Let me debug further, but there is definitely some bug.
