How to Delete Logs Older Than 30 Days

Prerequisites

Before deleting old logs, make sure you have:

• SSH access to your VPS
• Root or sudo privileges

Method 1: Using logrotate rotate count

Connect to your VPS:

ssh hxroot@YOUR_SERVER_IP -p 22

Edit /etc/logrotate.conf:

rotate 30   # Keep 30 rotations (daily = 30 days)

Or for weekly rotation:

rotate 4    # Keep 4 weeks

Method 2: Cron Job with find

Create cleanup script:

sudo nano /usr/local/bin/cleanup-logs.sh

#!/bin/bash
find /var/log -type f -name "*.log" -mtime +30 -delete
find /var/log -type f -name "*.gz" -mtime +90 -delete
find /var/log -type f -name "*.1" -mtime +30 -delete

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/cleanup-logs.sh

Add to cron:

sudo crontab -e

0 3 * * * /usr/local/bin/cleanup-logs.sh

Method 3: Delete Specific Old Journal Logs

sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=30d

Method 4: Dry Run Before Deletion

find /var/log -type f -name "*.log" -mtime +30 -ls

Review then remove the -ls and add -delete.