61 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
61 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
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# Log rotation
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Nimbus logs are written to the console, and optionally to a file. Using the log file option for a long-running process may lead to difficulties when the file grows large. This is typically solved with a log rotator that will switch which file is witten to as well as compress and remove old logs.
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To set up file-based log rotation, an application such as [rotatelogs](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/programs/rotatelogs.html) is used - `rotatelogs` is available on most servers and can be used with `docker`, `systemd` and manual setups to write rotated logs files.
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In particular, when using `systemd` and its accompanying `journald` log daemon, this setup avoids clogging the the system log and keep the Nimbus logs in a separate location.
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## Compression
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`rotatelogs` works by reading stdin and redirecting it to a file based on a name pattern. Whenever the log is about to be rotated, the application will invoke a shell script with the old and new log files. Our aim is to compress the log file to save space. [repo](https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2/tree/unstable/scripts/rotatelogs-compress.sh) provides a helper script to do so:
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```bash
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# Create a rotation script for rotatelogs
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cat << EOF > rotatelogs-compress.sh
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#!/bin/sh
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# Helper script for Apache rotatelogs to compress log files on rotation - `$2` contains the old log file name
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if [ -f "$2" ]; then
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# "nice" prevents hogging the CPU with this low-priority task
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nice gzip -9 "$2"
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fi
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EOF
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chmod +x rotatelogs-compress.sh
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```
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## Build
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Logs in files generally don't benefit from colors - to avoid colors being written to the file, additional flags can be added to the Nimbus [build process](./build.md) - these flags are best saved in a build script to which one can add more options. Future versions of Nimbus will support disabling colors at runtime.
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```bash
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# Build nimbus with colors disabled
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cat << EOF > build-nbc-text.sh
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#!/bin/bash
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make NIMFLAGS="-d:chronicles_colors=off -d:chronicles_sinks=textlines" nimbus_beacon_node
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EOF
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```
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## Run
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The final step is to redirect logs to `rotatelogs` using a pipe when starting nimbus:
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```bash
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build/nimbus_beacon_node \
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--network:pyrmont \
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--web3-url="$WEB3URL" \
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--data-dir:$DATADIR | rotatelogs -L "$DATADIR/nbc_bn.log" -p "/path/to/rotatelogs-compress.sh" -D -f -c "$DATADIR/log/nbc_bn_%Y%m%d%H%M%S.log" 3600
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```
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The options used in this example will:
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* `-L nbc_bn.log` - symlink to the latest log file, for use with `tail -F`
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* `-p "/path/to/rotatelogs-compress.sh"` - script to run when rotation is about to happen
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* `-D` - create the `log` directory if needed
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* `-f` - open the log immediately when starting `rotatelogs`
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* `-c "$DATADIR/log/nbc_bn_%Y%m%d%H%M%S.log"` - include timestamp in log filename
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* `3600` - rotate logs every hour (3600 seconds)
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