Logrotate duplicates files - linux

Question

I have a test application which runs every hour and uses unique log file at each execution. To clean the logs the following logrotate configuration has been set:
{
# Daily rotation with 1 week of backlog
daily
rotate 7
maxage 7
dateext
compress
}
The first day the log file compressed (which is ok) but a empty file is left and every other day that files is "emptied" and compressed. And that makes 6 files of every logfiles which fills the inodes table of the FS. Here's two examples :
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1752 Feb 11 01:36 J20190211013601_Status.txt-20190212.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 12 03:33 J20190211013601_Status.txt-20190213.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 13 03:37 J20190211013601_Status.txt-20190214.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 14 03:10 J20190211013601_Status.txt-20190215.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 15 03:12 J20190211013601_Status.txt-20190216.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 16 03:36 J20190211013601_Status.txt-20190217.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 17 03:44 J20190211013601_Status.txt-20190218.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Feb 18 03:24 J20190211013601_Status.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1752 Feb 11 02:36 J20190211023601_Status.txt-20190212.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 12 03:33 J20190211023601_Status.txt-20190213.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 13 03:37 J20190211023601_Status.txt-20190214.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 14 03:10 J20190211023601_Status.txt-20190215.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 15 03:12 J20190211023601_Status.txt-20190216.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 16 03:36 J20190211023601_Status.txt-20190217.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 20 Feb 17 03:44 J20190211023601_Status.txt-20190218.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Feb 18 03:24 J20190211023601_Status.txt
How can i correct this, in order to delete the files after being compressed
Thanks for time and help,

Answer 1

This is how logrotate is supposed to function; your issue stems from the fact that you're using unique filenames every time your appplication runs.
When logrotate runs for the first time on each log, it's moving the log file from "J20190211023601_Status.txt" to "J20190211023601_Status.txt-20190212.gz" and then creating a new file named J20190211023601_Status.txt.
Logrotate has no inherent idea that those filenames are unique and thus will never be populated again; all it sees is a log it's rotated in the past, so it must be rotated again as per your configuration.
Your easiest solution here is to pass the nocreate directive for this logrotation; this will prevent that new log file from being created and subsequently rotated while still respecting the 7-day age limit on previously rotated files:
{
daily
maxage 7
dateext
compress
nocreate
}