gigantic messages files created in /var/log makes system virtually unusable

[jd1008]

On 06/19/2015 02:51 PM, Ranjan Maitra wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Jun 2015 14:31:41 -0600 jd1008 <jd1008 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 06/19/2015 02:27 PM, Ranjan Maitra wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Earlier today, I discovered my 2-week-old (in terms of installation) F21-> F22 system unusable. Upon investigation, I found / at 100%, because it had been overrun by a /var/log/messages file which was 7.5G. I deleted this file (and also removed auditd, horrifying!) but was wondering if there is a way to limit the size of the messages file or at least erase the old messages files once in a while.
>>>
>>> My / is 14 GB, /boot is 1GB, and swap is 32 GB. Memory is 32 GB also. I installed Fedora 21 on June 3 or 4 and then upgraded to F22 last week using FedUp.
>>>
>>> Many thanks and best wishes,
>>> Ranjan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> RAM is 32GB?
>> What is the size of swap?
> Sorry, yes, RAM is 32 GB and so is swap.
>
> Ranjan
>
I find it strange that the messages file can grow that large.
I looked for system settings and log setting and cannot
find where the the setting is for the size that the messages
file is allowed to grow to.

This is what my logrotate is set to:

$ cat /etc/logrotate.conf
# see "man logrotate" for details
# rotate log files weekly
weekly

# keep 4 weeks worth of backlogs
rotate 4

# create new (empty) log files after rotating old ones
create

# use date as a suffix of the rotated file
dateext

# uncomment this if you want your log files compressed
compress

# RPM packages drop log rotation information into this directory
include /etc/logrotate.d

# no packages own wtmp and btmp -- we'll rotate them here
/var/log/wtmp {
     monthly
     create 0664 root utmp
         minsize 1M
     rotate 1
}

/var/log/btmp {
     missingok
     monthly
     create 0600 root utmp
     rotate 1
}

# system-specific logs may be also be configured here.