Nginx Log Management Guide

Efficient log management helps in maintaining disk space and improving observability. This guide covers how to find, inspect, and manage old Nginx logs.

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📁 1. Find and Manage Old Log Files

🔍 List Compressed Logs Older Than N Days

find /etc/nginx/log/ -name "*.gz" -mtime +N

Replace N with the number of days.

Examples:

# Logs older than 30 days
find /etc/nginx/log/ -name "*.gz" -mtime +30

# Logs older than 7 days
find /etc/nginx/log/ -name "*.gz" -mtime +7

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📄 List With File Details (Size, Modification Date)

find /etc/nginx/log/ -name "*.gz" -mtime +30 -ls

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🔢 Count Old Log Files

find /etc/nginx/log/ -name "*.gz" -mtime +30 | wc -l

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⚠️ Delete Old Logs (Be Careful!)

Dry Run (Preview What Will Be Deleted)

find /etc/nginx/log/ -name "*.gz" -mtime +30 -print

Actual Deletion

find /etc/nginx/log/ -name "*.gz" -mtime +30 -delete

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🗑️ Find and Delete Empty Log Files

Find Empty Log Files

find /etc/nginx/log/ -type f -empty -name "*.log"

Delete Empty Log Files

find /etc/nginx/log/ -type f -empty -name "*.log" -delete

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✅ Best Practices

• Always test with -print before using -delete
• Consider compressing instead of deleting:

find /etc/nginx/log/ -name "*.log" -mtime +7 -exec gzip {} \;

• Set up monitoring for log directory size:

du -sh /etc/nginx/log/

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🔁 Log Rotation Verification

Check when logs were last rotated:

ls -lth /etc/nginx/log/*.gz | head -n 5