Centos – tail -f : `tail: logfile.log: file truncated`

centostail

I was watching a log file (logfile.log) with tail -f, and after a few minutes, the following message was written to the file:

tail: logfile.log: file truncated

I've never seen that before and I'm wonder why it happened, and how I can prevent it. The file is being written to by root (via a cronjob), and was created by another user.

It also seems that the cronjob is actually overwriting the logfile each time. I guess that this is probably the reason for the message I was seeing.

Edit Here's what the cronjob looks like:

* * * * * /usr/local/bin/ruby /home/web/script.rb > >/home/web/logfile.log 2>&1

Best Answer

I dont know if its just a typo.. but shouldnt it be ..../script.rb >> /home/web/logfile.log for it to propertly append? Your code seems to have a space between the double angle bracket

I tried it just now on bash in mac, it prompted an error, perhaps some shells may just ignore the second angle arrow in this case

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