Logrotate won't rotate log while saying it does

Question

I have a logrotate config that worked normally, until all of a sudden it stopped doing so. I guess that it stopped rotating my log after I deleted and recreated the log folder while updating my application. Below are the relevant parts of config and logrotate log.

/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

# uncomment this if you want your log files compressed
#compress

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

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

/var/log/btmp {
    missingok
    monthly
    create 0660 root utmp
    rotate 1
}

# system-specific logs may be configured here
/var/lib/redmine/log/production.log{
    daily
    rotate 30
    compress
    delaycompress
    missingok
    notifempty
}

After I manually run logrotate:

rotating pattern: /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log after 1 days (30 rotations)
empty log files are not rotated, old logs are removed
considering log /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log
  log needs rotating
rotating log /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log, log->rotateCount is 30
dateext suffix '-20151209'
glob pattern '-[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]'
compressing log with: /bin/gzip
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.30.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.31.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 30),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.29.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.30.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 29),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.28.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.29.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 28),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.27.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.28.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 27),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.26.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.27.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 26),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.25.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.26.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 25),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.24.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.25.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 24),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.23.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.24.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 23),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.22.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.23.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 22),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.21.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.22.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 21),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.20.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.21.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 20),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.19.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.20.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 19),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.18.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.19.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 18),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.17.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.18.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 17),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.16.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.17.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 16),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.15.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.16.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 15),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.14.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.15.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 14),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.13.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.14.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 13),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.12.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.13.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 12),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.11.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.12.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 11),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.10.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.11.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 10),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.9.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.10.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 9),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.8.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.9.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 8),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.7.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.8.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 7),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.6.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.7.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 6),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.5.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.6.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 5),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.4.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.5.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 4),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.3.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.4.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 3),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.2.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.3.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 2),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.1.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.2.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 1),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.0.gz to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.1.gz (rotatecount 30, logstart 1, i 0),
renaming /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log to /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.1
creating new /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log mode = 0644 uid = 1000 gid = 1000
removing old log /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.31.gz
error: error opening /var/lib/redmine/log/production.log.31.gz: No such file or directory

After I list the log directory:

ll /var/lib/redmine/log/
total 178484
drwxrwxr-x  2 redmine redmine      4096 Dec  9 12:05 ./
drwxr-xr-x 20 redmine redmine      4096 Dec  6 23:56 ../
-rw-rw-r--  1 redmine redmine     49581 Dec  8 14:47 development.log
-rw-r--r--  1 redmine redmine 182700709 Dec  9 12:05 production.log

So it says it did rotate the log file, but nothing actually happened. What can be the reason for that?

Answer 1

One reason might be that you are listing your logs like redmine user, while logrotate works as root, so directory listing does not show them

I would rather create file /etc/logrotate.d/redmine With following contents:

/path/to/your/redmine/log/production.log {
daily
missingok
rotate 31
compress
delaycompress
notifempty
copytruncate
} 

Then test by:

sudo /usr/sbin/logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.d/redmine

Answer 2

The problem turned to be wrong permissions on log folder. Logrotate wouldn't process it cause it had group write access. After running chmod 755 on the log folder, it all began to work.