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Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:29:28 -0400
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Subject: Re: httpd should be able to reopen log files without a restart.
From: Eric Covener <covener@gmail.com>
To: dev@httpd.apache.org
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On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 9:16 PM, crocket <crockabiscuit@gmail.com> wrote:
> When some softwares(including stunnel) receive SIGUSR1, they reopen a
> log file without re-reading configuration files or restarting.
> Since httpd uses SIGUSR1 for graceful restart, it could use SIGUSR2
> purely for reopening log files.
>
> Why do people need this signal?
>
> A graceful restart doesn't kill active children processes, and those
> processes still write on an old log file.
> logrotate can be configured to compress old log files, in which case
> httpd would try to write onto a compressed log file.
> Since httpd can't log to a file, it would show abnormal behaviors or
> even abort downloads from httpd.

Does logrotate use the same inode for the compressed file? Either way,
why would httpd fail to write to the file and behave abnormally?