Logrotate is a pain 3734

The way the file system works is that once a file has been opened it is refered to by its inode (internal file management number) not a name. This is to prevent file system destruction if a name is changed in the middle of a write say. But it also means that somehow the program has to release that inode when it is finised. A well written program will either always close the file when it is finished writing, or will respond to a signal (eg HUP) by closing and reopening all files. If the program is not well written, then you HAVE to stop the program so all files are closed and then restart it to reopen the new files, otherwise all writing continues to the old inode. So, is your program well written? If not why not?

And you may well then have an inconsistant filesystem. Truncating a file while a write is going on is not a great idea.

And if the file has any structure, the first entry is almost certain to be a garbled mess. That may of course not matter. Note that you can certainly do this with logrotate as well. Use the pre and post directives.