Logs

The logs on my server are getting to the point that they're taking up a lot of space. Is there a simple way to delete all of the logs? The reason for this post is that I don't want to delete something I shouldn't.

 

What logs? For what service?

 

Mail is the one that's taking up a lot of space, but I'd like to do delete all of them. Do I need to leave logs on there for some reason?

 

No, you can delete old, unused logs.

 

So, I can I delete the entire folder /var/log?

 

No, don't delete that folder - just old, unused log files inside that folder.

 

How do I know what's old and not being used? If I delete everything in it, won't it just recreate the files?

 

Not necessarily - some services might fail to start if the log file is missing.
Old files usually have extensions like .1.gz, .2.gz, and so on.

 

So I can delete anything with .log.#.gz in var/log without causing any mayhem?

 

Yes, that's right.