logrotate complains about error: mixmaster:7 unknown option 'su' -- ignoring line

[Václav Haisman]

My daily cron mail contains this repeatedly:

/etc/cron.daily/logrotate:
error: mixmaster:7 unknown option 'su' -- ignoring line
error: mixmaster:7 unexpected text

Looking at /etc/logrotate.d/mixmaster shows this:

/var/log/mixmaster/err.log {
        weekly
        rotate 5
        compress
        missingok
        notifempty
        su root mixmaster
}

It looks like the "su root mixmaster" line is not valid.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Colin Tuckley (colint)]

This appears to be a compatibility problem with logrotate.

The Debian wheezy version of logrotate appears to support this.

From the man page:

su user group
              Rotate log files set under this user and group instead of using default user/group (usually root).
              user specifies the user name used for rotation and group specifies the group used for rotation.

[James Teh (jteh)]

I'm also seeing this with mailman:
/etc/cron.daily/logrotate:
error: mailman:2 unknown option 'su' -- ignoring line
error: mailman:2 unexpected text
error: mailman:16 unknown option 'su' -- ignoring line
error: mailman:16 unexpected text
error: mailman:30 unknown option 'su' -- ignoring line
error: mailman:30 unexpected text
error: mailman:44 unknown option 'su' -- ignoring line
error: mailman:44 unexpected text
error: mailman:58 unknown option 'su' -- ignoring line
error: mailman:58 unexpected text

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Thomas Sisson (thomas-sisson-1)]

This is an obvious hack and not a true patch. Instead su should behave as expected and be exactly like the Debian version.

In my opinion, we should not divert from Debian on commands and scripts unless it is necessary. This can generally be applied to inherent differences in directory structure, interface changes, and security issues. Why reinvent the wheel?

I simply commented out the offending line and added the comment, "Works in Debian, but not Ubuntu."
Then I duplicated the line, replacing mixmaster with root.

I am not a programmer. I have not tested this.