log_file Name to include date.

[fractal815]

I'm wanting to include the date in the log file name. I have attempted to use the Conversion Specifiers (%Y-%m-%d) and also the linux/bash date functions such as "date -Idate" in the name in the log_file parameter. Motion does not resolve either of these, giving me names like /home/frank/motion/logs/motion-%Y-%m-%d.log or /home/frank/motion/logs/motion-"date -Idate".log . Anyone have any thoughts on how to accomplish this? So far the only thing that works is to launch motion at the command line and pass the name there, but this is not an acceptable method.

[fractal815]

I forgot to include the environment info. I am running motion on a ubuntu 23.10 and motion version 4.5.1.

[olddog55]

A 'standard' installation of motion on a Debian based (Ubuntu) distribution will normally include logfile rotations as a periodic /etc/logrotate.d/motion job.

And logrotate has the capability to provide a date tag. See man logrotate

       dateext
              Archive old versions of log files adding a date extension like YYYYMMDD instead of simply adding  a  num‐
              ber.  The extension may be configured using the dateformat and dateyesterday options.

       dateformat format_string
              Specify  the  extension for dateext using the notation similar to strftime(3) function.  Only %Y %m %d %H
              %M %S %V and %s specifiers are allowed.  The default value is -%Y%m%d except hourly, which uses -%Y%m%d%H
              as  default  value.   Note  that also the character separating log name from the extension is part of the
              dateformat string.  The system clock must be set past Sep 9th 2001 for %s to work correctly.   Note  that
              the  datestamps  generated  by  this  format must be lexically sortable (that is first the year, then the
              month then the day.  For example 2001/12/01 is ok, but 01/12/2001 is not,  since  01/11/2002  would  sort
              lower  while  it  is  later).   This is because when using the rotate option, logrotate sorts all rotated
              filenames to find out which logfiles are older and should be removed.

       dateyesterday
              Use yesterday's instead of today's date to create the dateext extension, so that the rotated log file has
              a date in its name that is the same as the timestamps within it.

You will need to update your '/etc/logrotate.d/motion' configuration file. This won't affect the base log_file name, but will provide a dated extension.

You did not say how/if you are currently managing the logging process. So as food for thought, you my be able to script something like:

## My /my-path/motion-logging-and-restart script
## Check if motion is running
pgrep -x motion || exit
cd /my-motion-path
## update (edit) motion.conf to have a today timestamp
sed -i "s:^log_file .*:log_file /var/log/motion.log-`date +%Y-%m-%d`:" motion.conf
## restart/reload motion via SIGHUP
pkill -hup motion

This could even be done as a user (motion?) cronjob:

0 0 * * *   cd /my-motion-path ; sed -i "s:^log_file .*:log_file /var/log/motion.log-`date +%Y-%m-%d`:" motion.conf ; pkill -hup motion

Good luck.