Log rotation broken?

[Steve Francis]

I have lots of networks to scan, so scans take several days. When I
rotate the file /usr/local/nessus/var/nessus/logs/nessusd.messages , and
send the master nessus process a HUP, I no longer get activity logged
for the still ongoing scans.

e.g. right now I have a scan running, rotated my log file, sent a HUP,
and the entire file consists of:
cat /usr/local/nessus/var/nessus/logs/nessusd.messages
Mar 26 23:00:00 rack1-401 newsyslog[99331]: logfile turned over
[Mon Mar 29 15:09:48 2004][81258] nessusd 2.0.10 started

Yet the scan is proceeeding - with no way for me to see what is going on.

Is log file rotation not supported while a scan is running?
THis is using nessusd 2.0.10.

Thanks

[George Theall]

Post by Steve Francis
I have lots of networks to scan, so scans take several days. When I
rotate the file /usr/local/nessus/var/nessus/logs/nessusd.messages , and
send the master nessus process a HUP, I no longer get activity logged
for the still ongoing scans.

Are you sure? I would expect that logging of an ongoing scan would
continue to be written to the same file descriptor, although that
descriptor would now be associated with a different filename. Thus, if
you're simply rotating the files, output should continue in
nessusd.messages.1 until the scan completes. All bets are off, though,
if you're compressing old logs, moving them elsewhere, or the like.

Post by Steve Francis
Is log file rotation not supported while a scan is running?

Configure nessusd to use syslog if you prefer are more robust logging
mechanism.


George