On Ubuntu 22.04 logrotate does not rotate syslog

[corrado venturini]

On my Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy installed 2022-01-03 /var/log/syslog is very big and was never rotated.

corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~$ stat /var/log/syslog
  File: /var/log/syslog
  Size: 77434065 Blocks: 151248 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Device: 10303h/66307d Inode: 264672 Links: 1
Access: (0640/-rw-r-----) Uid: ( 104/ syslog) Gid: ( 4/ adm)
Access: 2022-01-28 16:35:50.408728666 +0100
Modify: 2022-01-28 16:35:47.705029318 +0100
Change: 2022-01-28 16:35:47.705029318 +0100
 Birth: 2022-01-03 14:31:29.195999321 +0100
corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~$

looking to journalctl i see logrotate has been started on January 25 but log file was not cut

corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~$ journalctl -b-18 | grep logrotate
gen 25 07:58:01 corrado-n3-jj-0103 systemd[1]: logrotate.service: Deactivated successfully.
gen 25 09:35:09 corrado-n3-jj-0103 systemd[1]: logrotate.timer: Deactivated successfully.
corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~$

corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~$ systemctl status logrotate.service
○ logrotate.service - Rotate log files
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/logrotate.service; static)
     Active: inactive (dead)
TriggeredBy: ● logrotate.timer
       Docs: man:logrotate(8)
             man:logrotate.conf(5)
corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~$

corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~$ cat /etc/logrotate.conf
# see "man logrotate" for details

# global options do not affect preceding include directives

# rotate log files weekly
weekly

# use the adm group by default, since this is the owning group
# of /var/log/syslog.
su root adm

# 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

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

# system-specific logs may also be configured here.
corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~$

corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~$ ls /var/log -lh
total 108M
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 42K gen 27 21:20 alternatives.log
-rw-r----- 1 root adm 5,5K gen 28 17:32 apport.log
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4,0K gen 28 17:52 apt
-rw-r----- 1 syslog adm 762K gen 28 19:08 auth.log
-rw------- 1 root root 1019K gen 28 17:54 boot.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 105K gen 3 08:43 bootstrap.log
-rw-rw---- 1 root utmp 0 gen 3 08:42 btmp
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4,0K gen 3 14:31 cups
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4,0K ott 29 18:59 dist-upgrade
-rw-r----- 1 root adm 81K gen 28 17:55 dmesg
-rw-r----- 1 root adm 80K gen 28 17:22 dmesg.0
-rw-r----- 1 root adm 22K gen 28 17:02 dmesg.1.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root adm 22K gen 28 16:01 dmesg.2.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root adm 22K gen 28 10:29 dmesg.3.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root adm 22K gen 28 08:54 dmesg.4.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1,4M gen 28 17:52 dpkg.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 32K gen 6 09:44 faillog
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12K gen 28 15:32 fontconfig.log
drwx--x--x 2 root gdm 4,0K gen 3 14:31 gdm3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1,5K gen 28 17:54 gpu-manager.log
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4,0K gen 3 08:44 hp
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4,0K gen 3 13:59 installer
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 544K gen 11 08:33 installer.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 544K gen 3 21:25 inst.zip
drwxr-sr-x+ 3 root systemd-journal 4,0K gen 3 14:31 journal
-rw-r----- 1 syslog adm 27M gen 28 19:09 kern.log
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root utmp 286K gen 6 09:44 lastlog
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4,0K nov 18 15:05 openvpn
drwx------ 2 root root 4,0K gen 3 08:42 private
drwx------ 2 speech-dispatcher root 4,0K dic 11 23:07 speech-dispatcher
-rw-r----- 1 syslog adm 76M gen 28 19:10 syslog
-rw------- 1 root root 90K gen 27 18:40 ubuntu-advantage.log
-rw------- 1 root root 6,1K gen 28 18:30 ubuntu-advantage-timer.log
drwxr-x--- 2 root adm 4,0K gen 6 10:28 unattended-upgrades
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 392K gen 28 17:54 uvcdynctrl-udev.log
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root utmp 179K gen 28 17:56 wtmp
corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~

corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~$ cat /etc/logrotate.d/rsyslog
/var/log/syslog
/var/log/mail.info
/var/log/mail.warn
/var/log/mail.err
/var/log/mail.log
/var/log/daemon.log
/var/log/kern.log
/var/log/auth.log
/var/log/user.log
/var/log/lpr.log
/var/log/cron.log
/var/log/debug
/var/log/messages
{
 rotate 4
 weekly
 missingok
 notifempty
 compress
 delaycompress
 sharedscripts
 postrotate
  /usr/lib/rsyslog/rsyslog-rotate
 endscript
}
corrado@corrado-n3-jj-0103:~$

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: logrotate 3.19.0-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.15.0-18.18-generic 5.15.12
Uname: Linux 5.15.0-18-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu76
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri Jan 28 19:08:37 2022
InstallationDate: Installed on 2022-01-03 (25 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Alpha amd64 (20220103)
SourcePackage: logrotate
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Nigel Winterbottom (8-nigel)]

root@nigel-Latitude-E6420:~# logrotate /etc/logrotate.d/rsyslog --debug
WARNING: logrotate in debug mode does nothing except ...
...
considering log /var/log/syslog
error: skipping "/var/log/syslog" because parent directory has insecure permissions (It's world writable or writable by group which is not "root") Set "su" directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

[Nigel Winterbottom (8-nigel)]

root@nigel-Latitude-E6420:~# ls -l /var | fgrep log
drwxrwxr-x 14 root syslog 4096 Dec 2 16:46 log