log retention time period should not be hardcoded

[Mason Schmitt]

I'm presently running 16.04LTS. On that version atop's init script has the log retention period hardcoded to 28 days.

It would be better if the log retention period was set using a variable which could be modified in the /etc/default/atop file.

Here are two proposed patches that would resolve the issue:

--- /etc/init.d/atop.orig 2017-09-09 17:02:09.289551900 -0700
+++ /etc/init.d/atop 2017-09-09 17:00:36.972505450 -0700
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 WRAPPER=/usr/share/atop/atop.wrapper
 INTERVAL=600 # interval 10 minutes
 LOGPATH="/var/log/atop"
+RETENTION=28
 OUTFILE=$LOGPATH/daily.log
 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
 SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME
@@ -111,7 +112,7 @@
                 do_start
                 case "$?" in
                         0) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0
- [ "$1" = "_cron" ] && sleep 3 && find $LOGPATH -name 'atop_*' -mtime +28 -exec rm {} \;
+ [ "$1" = "_cron" ] && sleep 3 && find $LOGPATH -name 'atop_*' -mtime +$RETENTION -exec rm {} \;
              ;;
                         1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
                         *) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start

--- /etc/default/atop.orig 2017-09-09 17:01:39.077209432 -0700
+++ /etc/default/atop 2017-09-09 17:03:03.202163022 -0700
@@ -3,3 +3,4 @@
 INTERVAL=600
 LOGPATH="/var/log/atop"
 OUTFILE="$LOGPATH/daily.log"
+RETENTION=28

[Ian! D. Allen (idallen)]

In Ubuntu 20.04 LTS the script /etc/init.d/atop calls /usr/share/atop/atop.daily which does read /etc/default/atop and uses the variable LOGGENERATIONS=28. Systemd /usr/local/lib/systemd/system/atop.service also calls /usr/share/atop/atop.daily.

Confusingly, the file /etc/default/atop says not to use it:

# /etc/default/atop
# this file is no longer used and will be removed in a future release

Someone who knows better needs to decide how and where these configurable numbers should be set and either use the /etc/default/atop file or remove the misleading comment.