logrotate does not check the syntax of the template in the configuration file.

[a9binh]

# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS
Release: 10.04

# dpkg -l logrotate | grep ^ii
ii logrotate 3.7.8-4ubuntu2.2

# apt-cache policy logrotate
logrotate:
  Installed: 3.7.8-4ubuntu2.2
  Candidate: 3.7.8-4ubuntu2.2
  Version table:
 *** 3.7.8-4ubuntu2.2 0
        500 http://<apt-server>/ lucid-updates/main Packages
        500 http://<apt-server>/ubuntu/ lucid-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.7.8-4ubuntu2 0
        500 http://<apt-server>/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages

When logrotate runs, it doesn't check the syntax of the template in the configuration file.

For example, in the configuration file /etc/logrotate.d/vsftpd,

/var/log/xferlog
        create 600 root root
        missingok
        notifempty
        rotate 4
        weekly
        compress
}

There's a missing bracket at the begining of the template. logrotate will treat the above lines as files:

/var/log/xferlog
create
600
root

What happens is that, when the weekly cron runs, it will move the directory /root into /root.1 and create a flat file /root in its place. This causes a major problem in a cluster environment.

The problem is reproducible.

The content of the status file /var/lib/logrotate/status shows:

logrotate state -- version 2
...
"/var/log/uucp.log" 2011-10-15
"600" 2012-11-2
"/var/log/btmp" 2012-11-1
...
"create" 2012-11-2
"/var/log/apache2/error.log" 2011-10-30
"/var/log/xferlog" 2012-11-4
...
"root" 2012-11-4
...