CentOS - Dec 2010 - /dev/null permission changes figured out

a while back i reported an issue where /dev/null was getting set to 600
perms after a system update.  i finally figured out what it is.  i don't
care about failed logins and have limited space on some servers, so i
symlinked /var/log/btmp to /dev/null.  the initscripts package does a
chmod 600 /var/log/btmp, so voila /dev/null gets changed.

so now i know why it happened just to me.  i now need to figure out a
better way to deal with btmp.  any ideas from the list?

On 12/16/2010 10:29 AM, Joe Pruett wrote:
> a while back i reported an issue where /dev/null was getting set to 600
> perms after a system update.  i finally figured out what it is.  i
don't
> care about failed logins and have limited space on some servers, so i
> symlinked /var/log/btmp to /dev/null.  the initscripts package does a
> chmod 600 /var/log/btmp, so voila /dev/null gets changed.
>
> so now i know why it happened just to me.  i now need to figure out a
> better way to deal with btmp.  any ideas from the list?
>
Put a logrotate config for /var/log/btmp in /etc/logrotate.d that 
rotates it once a day and use 'rotate 0' to just throw them away.

See 'man logrotate' for the configuration syntax.

-- 
Benjamin Franz