Ignoring /etc/logrotate.conf because of bad file mode

Question

How can I do logrotate? I can see no effect when I do logrotate:

root@me-Latitude-E5550:/etc/logrotate.d# cd ..
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/etc# cd ..
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/# logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf
Ignoring /etc/logrotate.conf because of bad file mode.

Handling 0 logs
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/# chmod 644 /etc/logrotate.d/*
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/# cd /etc/logrotate.d
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/etc/logrotate.d# ls
apport       custom   pm-utils  speech-dispatcher    upstart
apt          dpkg     ppp       ufw
cups-daemon  lightdm  rsyslog   unattended-upgrades
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/etc/logrotate.d# cd ..
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/etc# cd ..
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/# logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf
Ignoring /etc/logrotate.conf because of bad file mode.

Handling 0 logs
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/# cd /var/log
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log# ls -larth
total 34M
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Feb 18  2016 speech-dispatcher
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Mai 19  2016 upstart
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jul 19  2016 fsck
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root     31 Jul 19  2016 dmesg
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root    57K Jul 19  2016 bootstrap.log
drwxrwxrwx  3 root root   4,0K Jul 19  2016 hp
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root   4,0K Jul 19  2016 ..
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jun 14 13:17 apt
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jun 14 13:20 installer
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jun 19 09:50 unattended-upgrades
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   3,8K Jun 19 09:55 fontconfig.log
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root    554 Jun 19 15:02 apport.log.1
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jun 20 07:35 lightdm
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   836K Jun 20 07:35 syslog.1
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root    32K Jun 20 14:31 faillog
-rw-------  1 root utmp    768 Jul 14 09:28 btmp
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jul 14 10:38 dist-upgrade
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root    43K Jul 14 10:45 alternatives.log
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   286K Jul 14 11:04 lastlog
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jul 18 08:59 sysstat
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   1,8M Jul 18 11:13 dpkg.log
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jul 18 12:19 cups
-rw-r-----  1 root adm     14K Jul 18 12:20 apport.log
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    32K Jul 18 18:38 Xorg.0.log.old
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   1,9K Jul 18 18:44 gpu-manager.log
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   1009 Jul 18 18:44 boot.log
drwxrwxr-x 13 root syslog 4,0K Jul 18 18:44 .
-rw-rw-r--  1 root utmp    85K Jul 18 18:45 wtmp
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    29K Jul 18 21:17 Xorg.0.log
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   5,7M Jul 18 21:18 kern.log
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   580K Jul 18 21:50 auth.log
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root    24M Jul 18 21:54 syslog
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log# logrotate -f /etc/logroate.conf
error: cannot stat /etc/logroate.conf: No such file or directory
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log# logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.conf
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log# ls -larth
total 34M
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Feb 18  2016 speech-dispatcher
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Mai 19  2016 upstart
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jul 19  2016 fsck
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root     31 Jul 19  2016 dmesg
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root    57K Jul 19  2016 bootstrap.log
drwxrwxrwx  3 root root   4,0K Jul 19  2016 hp
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root   4,0K Jul 19  2016 ..
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jun 14 13:17 apt
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jun 14 13:20 installer
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jun 19 09:50 unattended-upgrades
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   3,8K Jun 19 09:55 fontconfig.log
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root    554 Jun 19 15:02 apport.log.1
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jun 20 07:35 lightdm
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   836K Jun 20 07:35 syslog.1
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root    32K Jun 20 14:31 faillog
-rw-------  1 root utmp    768 Jul 14 09:28 btmp
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jul 14 10:38 dist-upgrade
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root    43K Jul 14 10:45 alternatives.log
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   286K Jul 14 11:04 lastlog
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jul 18 08:59 sysstat
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   1,8M Jul 18 11:13 dpkg.log
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root   4,0K Jul 18 12:19 cups
-rw-r-----  1 root adm     14K Jul 18 12:20 apport.log
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    32K Jul 18 18:38 Xorg.0.log.old
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   1,9K Jul 18 18:44 gpu-manager.log
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   1009 Jul 18 18:44 boot.log
drwxrwxr-x 13 root syslog 4,0K Jul 18 18:44 .
-rw-rw-r--  1 root utmp    85K Jul 18 18:45 wtmp
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    29K Jul 18 21:17 Xorg.0.log
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   5,7M Jul 18 21:18 kern.log
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root   580K Jul 18 21:50 auth.log
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root root    24M Jul 18 21:55 syslog
root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log#

Solution

You are changing permission on logrotate.d. you need to chmod 644 /etc/logrotate.conf And chown root:root /etc/logrotate.conf And then it could work

Comments

[jenny]

nope , i did it, still no change in var/log sizes

[Krzysztof Stasiak]

There same error on run in debug mode? logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf

[jenny]

yeah same error... /var/log# logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf Ignoring /etc/logrotate.conf because of bad file mode. Handling 0 logs

[jenny]

rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 703 Mai 6 2015 /etc/logrotate.conf is the output

[Krzysztof Stasiak]

You have permision: 777, and need to Change them, only root can write this file. Did you have any error on chmod 644 ?

[jenny]

I am running all these commands as root user by logging into root using sudo su .Should i use chown command logging out of root and logging into normal user?

[Krzysztof Stasiak]

No, you can do that only as root, I have no idea why its no chmod file to 644

[jenny]

Ahhh ... okay but i can get a clue from my previous runs though i do not understand the meaning of it sudo su- sudo: /etc/sudoers.d is world writable gives me this message and whenever i do sudo when I am using like normal user, it displays this message that it is world writable.

[Krzysztof Stasiak]

Ok, one more idea;p do you have write perm to filesystem ( is not mounted as readonly)? Try chmod -v 644

[jenny]

root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log# chmod -v 644 /etc/logrotate.conf mode of '/etc/logrotate.conf' changed from 0777 (rwxrwxrwx) to 0644 (rw-r--r--) root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log# ls -l /etc/logrotate.conf -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 703 Mai 6 2015 /etc/logrotate.conf yeah got the permissions.

[jenny]

How can i change the permissions then? should i change it during boot? going to recover mode?

[Krzysztof Stasiak]

You need to audit your /etc/ permissions, because there could be problem with other software, you may try to chmod o-rwx on files in etc, and lookbook into syslog for errors

[Krzysztof Stasiak]

I dont knows about auto methods to reset permision, look [this] (askubuntu.com/questions/308939/…)

[jenny]

root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log# gksudo chown root:root /etc/ root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log# gksudo chmod u+x /etc/ root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log# gksudo chmod a+r /etc/ root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log# ls -l /etc/logrotate.conf -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 703 Mai 6 2015 /etc/logrotate.conf root@me-Latitude-E5550:/var/log# i think i got permissions as root user.

[jenny]

ahh i got back my right permissions now... but when i run logrotate command it ` -rw-rw-r-- 1 root utmp 0 Jul 19 15:33 wtmp -rw-rw---- 1 root utmp 0 Jul 19 15:33 btmp drwxrwxr-x 13 root syslog 4,0K Jul 19 15:33 .` only these are becoming 0 others in /var/log aren't and Iam running out of system memory now.Can i delete log files manually? This logrotate isnt working

[Krzysztof Stasiak]

You can delete logs manuały, i suggest to delete all .gz and with .1 files in /var/log that are old logs

[user3821306]

I had a file in logrotate.d that symlinked to a 664 config file... that needed changing to 644. all good now.