How to compress rotated access log in JBoss EAP 7/8

Environment

• Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP)

Issue

• I need to compress a rotated access log file to save disk space.

Resolution

To rotate JBoss EAP access log, add the suffix attribute .gz or .zip.

• Using JBoss CLI (Recommended):

    /subsystem=logging/periodic-size-rotating-file-handler=ACCESS_LOG:write-attribute(name=suffix,value=".yy-MM-dd.gz")
  

• Changing the XML manually:

        <periodic-size-rotating-file-handler name="ACCESS_LOG" autoflush="true">
            <formatter>
                <named-formatter name="ACCESS_LOG_FORMATTER"/>
            </formatter>
            <file relative-to="jboss.server.log.dir" path="access_log.log"/>
            <rotate-size value="500m"/>
            <max-backup-index value="3"/>
            <suffix value=".yy-MM-dd.gz"/>  <<== here
            <append value="true"/>
        </periodic-size-rotating-file-handler>
  

Root Cause

This is a new feature implemented since JBoss EAP 7.3. It is not possible to compress the logs before that version.

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