HI,
I am cleaning my PC somewhat and have decided that I only need journald so I don;t need rsyslog/syslog/logrotate. I have stop their respective services and have removed the rsyslog and syslog packages.
However when I go to remove logrotate there are 51 additional packages zypper wants to remove that I find odd, especially Networkmanager and lightdm.
chris@asus-roc:~>$sudo zypper --no-refresh rm logrotate
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...
The following 51 packages are going to be REMOVED:
iscsiuio libvirt libvirt-daemon libvirt-daemon-config-network libvirt-daemon-config-nwfilter libvirt-daemon-driver-interface libvirt-daemon-driver-libxl libvirt-daemon-driver-lxc
libvirt-daemon-driver-network libvirt-daemon-driver-nodedev libvirt-daemon-driver-nwfilter libvirt-daemon-driver-qemu libvirt-daemon-driver-secret libvirt-daemon-driver-storage
libvirt-daemon-driver-storage-core libvirt-daemon-driver-storage-disk libvirt-daemon-driver-storage-iscsi libvirt-daemon-driver-storage-iscsi-direct libvirt-daemon-driver-storage-logical
libvirt-daemon-driver-storage-mpath libvirt-daemon-driver-storage-rbd libvirt-daemon-driver-storage-scsi lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter lightdm-gtk-greeter-branding-openSUSE
lightdm-gtk-greeter-lang lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings-lang lightdm-lang logrotate lynis mcelog net-snmp NetworkManager NetworkManager-applet
NetworkManager-applet-lang NetworkManager-bluetooth NetworkManager-branding-openSUSE NetworkManager-lang NetworkManager-pppoe NetworkManager-tui NetworkManager-wwan nm-tray nm-tray-lang
patterns-base-x11_enhanced perl-SNMP wpa_supplicant xdm xorg-x11 xorg-x11-essentials yast2-iscsi-client
The following pattern is going to be REMOVED:
x11_enhanced
51 packages to remove.
After the operation, 42.0 MiB will be freed.
Continue? [y/n/v/...? shows all options] (y): n
chris@asus-roc:~>$
I looked at those package’s requirements eg lightdm, and can’t see why they need logrotate.
chris@asus-roc:~>$zypper if --requires lightdm
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Information for package lightdm:
--------------------------------
Repository : openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Oss
Name : lightdm
Version : 1.30.0-9.4
Arch : x86_64
Vendor : openSUSE
Installed Size : 386.7 KiB
Installed : Yes
Status : up-to-date
Source package : lightdm-1.30.0-9.4.src
Upstream URL : https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/LightDM
Summary : Lightweight, Cross-desktop Display Manager
Description :
LightDM is a lightweight, cross-desktop display manager. Its main
features are a well-defined greeter API allowing multiple GUIs,
support for all display manager use cases, with plugins where
appropriate, low code complexity, and fast performance. Due to its
cross-platform nature greeters can be written in several toolkits
such as Qt and GTK+.
Requires : [16]
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.34)(64bit)
libglib-2.0.so.0()(64bit)
libgobject-2.0.so.0()(64bit)
libgio-2.0.so.0()(64bit)
libxcb.so.1()(64bit)
libpam.so.0()(64bit)
libpam.so.0(LIBPAM_1.0)(64bit)
libgcrypt.so.20()(64bit)
libgcrypt.so.20(GCRYPT_1.6)(64bit)
libaudit.so.1()(64bit)
xdm
libXdmcp.so.6()(64bit)
gdmflexiserver
lightdm-greeter
/bin/sh
sysuser-shadow >= 3.1
chris@asus-roc:~>$
Can anyone explain why those 51 packages need to be deleted?
Quite some packages do not use sysylog and write log files directly, so logrotate remains useful without syslog.
eg lightdm, and can’t see why they need logrotate.
zypper transitively removes packages that require logrotate and then packages that require those packages etc. lightdm requires xdm which is being removed.
chris@asus-roc:~>$zypper search -i --requires-pkg logrotate
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Summary | Type
---+----------------+-----------------------------------------------------+--------
i+ | iscsiuio | Linux Broadcom NetXtremem II iscsi server | package
i+ | libvirt-daemon | Server side daemon and supporting files for libvirt | package
i+ | lynis | Security and System auditing tool | package
i+ | mcelog | Log Machine Check Events | package
i+ | net-snmp | SNMP Daemon | package
i+ | wpa_supplicant | WPA supplicant implementation | package
i+ | xdm | X Display Manager | package
chris@asus-roc:~>$zypper search -i --requires-pkg wpa_supplicant
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Summary | Type
---+----------------+---------------------------------------------------+--------
i+ | NetworkManager | Network Link Manager and user applications for it | package
chris@asus-roc:~>$zypper search -i --requires-pkg xdm
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Summary | Type
---+-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+--------
i+ | lightdm | Lightweight, Cross-desktop Display Manager | package
i+ | xdm | X Display Manager | package
i+ | xorg-x11-essentials | Compatibility metapackage for X.Org core applications | package
i+ | xorg-x11-server | X | package
i+ | xorg-x11-server-extra | Additional Xservers Xephyr, Xnest) | package
i+ | xorg-x11-server-Xvfb | Virtual Xserver Xvfb | package
i+ | xorg-x11-Xvnc | TigerVNC implementation of Xvnc | package
chris@asus-roc:~>$
If I stay focused on the lightdm package I can’t find any logrotate.conf file that mentions it. But it seems lightdm.log file is just cycled each boot so why would logrotate need to manage that?
sus-roc:/var/log/lightdm # ls -al
total 36
drwxr-x--- 1 lightdm lightdm 164 Aug 14 07:59 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2940 Aug 14 07:59 ..
-rw------- 1 root root 3147 Aug 14 07:59 lightdm.log
-rw------- 1 root root 4401 Aug 14 07:58 lightdm.log.old
-rw------- 1 root root 7022 Jul 16 18:10 seat0-greeter.log
-rw------- 1 root root 5928 Jul 6 12:57 seat0-greeter.log.old
-rw------- 1 root root 876 Aug 14 07:59 x-0.log
-rw------- 1 root root 938 Aug 14 07:58 x-0.log.old
**erlangen:~ #** zypper info logrotate
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Information for package logrotate:
----------------------------------
Repository : openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Oss
Name : logrotate
Version : 3.20.1-2.1
Arch : x86_64
Vendor : openSUSE
Installed Size : 160.8 KiB
**Installed : Yes (automatically) **
Status : up-to-date
Source package : logrotate-3.20.1-2.1.src
Upstream URL : https://github.com/logrotate/logrotate
Summary : Cron service for rotating, compressing, mailing and removing system log files
Description :
The logrotate utility does automatic rotation, compression, mailing and removal
of log files. Logrotate can be set to handle a log file daily, weekly, monthly,
or when the log file reaches a certain size. Normally, logrotate runs as a
daily cron job.
It manages plain files only and is not involved in systemd's journal rotation.
**erlangen:~ #**
Cleaning up an installation should never start at the bottom, but at the top. Check the list of packages flagged as user installed and consider their removal including ramifications.
I made a complete switch from PackageKit to zypper dist-upgrade and removed related packages:
**erlangen:~ #** zypper se packagekit
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Summary | Type
--+----------------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------
| cockpit-packagekit | Cockpit user interface for packages | package
| discover-backend-packagekit | PackageKit Backend for Discover | package
| gnome-packagekit | Applications for the PackageKit API | package
| gnome-packagekit-extras | Extra applications for the PackageKit API | package
| gnome-packagekit-lang | Translations for package gnome-packagekit | package
| libpackagekit-glib2-18 | GLib integration of PackageKit | package
| libpackagekit-glib2-18-32bit | GLib integration of PackageKit | package
| libpackagekit-glib2-devel | GLib integration of PackageKit | package
| libpackagekit-glib2-devel-32bit | GLib integration of PackageKit | package
i | libpackagekitqt5-1 | Simple software installation management software | package
| libpackagekitqt6-1 | Simple software installation management software | package
| microos_base_packagekit | openSUSE MicroOS using PackageKit | pattern
| PackageKit | Simple software installation management software | package
| PackageKit-backend-dnf | DNF backend for the PackageKit installation management software | package
| PackageKit-backend-zypp | Zypp backend for the PackageKit installation management software | package
| PackageKit-branding-openSUSE | Simple software installation management software -- openSUSE default configuration | package
| PackageKit-branding-upstream | Upstream configuration for the PackageKit installation management software | package
| PackageKit-devel | Header files for development with PackageKit | package
| PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin | Install GStreamer codecs using PackageKit | package
| PackageKit-gtk3-module | Install fonts automatically using PackageKit | package
| PackageKit-lang | Translations for package PackageKit | package
| packagekitqt5-devel | Simple software installation management software | package
| packagekitqt6-devel | Simple software installation management software | package
| patterns-microos-base-packagekit | openSUSE MicroOS using PackageKit | package
| typelib-1_0-PackageKitGlib-1_0 | Introspection bindings for PackageKit's GLib integration | package
**erlangen:~ #**
Removing the remaining libpackagekitqt5-1 would result in:
**erlangen:~ #** zypper remove --clean-deps --dry-run libpackagekitqt5-1
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...
The following 21 packages are going to be REMOVED:
frameworkintegration-plugin kdenetwork-filesharing kdenetwork-filesharing-lang libpackagekitqt5-1 patterns-kde-kde patterns-kde-kde_plasma plasma5-addons plasma5-addons-lang plasma5-defaults-openSUSE plasma5-desktop plasma5-desktop-emojier plasma5-desktop-lang plasma5-session plasma5-session-wayland plasma5-theme-openSUSE plasma5-workspace plasma5-workspace-branding-openSUSE plasma5-workspace-lang sddm sddm-branding-openSUSE sddm-theme-openSUSE
The following 2 patterns are going to be REMOVED:
kde kde_plasma
21 packages to remove.
After the operation, 81.0 MiB will be freed.
**Continue? [y/n/v/...? shows all options] (y): **
**erlangen:~ #**
Updates and upgrades will cause re-installation unless solver defaults are configured properly:
No. systemd-journald manages logs sent to journal and logs sent to syslog. It is not ware of and cannot manage log files written by applications directly.
lightdm package does not require logrotate package.
Maybe it was my clumsy way of saying things. Systemd-journald can run without rsyslog is the bottom line - no point having two systems do the same job on my desktops. And while it can’t initially manage application logs, rsyslog can with some setting up. But why create a headache
In tumbleweed lightdm does require logrotate so I’m leaving that installed but disabled. Funny thing, in my Arch linux laptop I can remove logrotate without issue and lightdm and other packages don’t complain.
