DevOps Dictionary

Log Rotation is the automated practice of managing log files by periodically renaming, compressing, archiving, and eventually deleting older logs so they don’t grow without bound. It addresses the common operational problem of ever-expanding log output filling disks, slowing down tools that read or ship logs, and making troubleshooting harder. At a high level, a rotation policy defines when to “roll” a log (by size, time, or both), how many rotated files to keep, and whether to compress them; many systems also reopen the log file so applications can continue writing without interruption.

With Log Rotation, storage usage stays predictable and logs remain fast to search and forward; without it, oversized log files can exhaust disk space, degrade performance, and increase the risk of outages or lost diagnostics. This gap exists because large files and full disks increase I/O (disk read/write) overhead and can block services that depend on writing logs.