I'm working on an embedded linux system where the root filesystem is mounted from an SDcard. Although many systems like this just mount /var/log on a ramdisk, I'd like to save the logs to the SDcard for recording important events, so I left logrotate operational as usual so the SDcard is not filled up completely.Unfortunately, this system doesn't have a battery backing up the RTC, so if the system is powered down and up again the system time goes back to Jan 1st 1970. In this situation, I ran logrotate once and then checked the logrotate configuration with logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf:# logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf reading config file /etc/logrotate.confincluding /etc/logrotate.dreading config file syslogreading config info for /var/log/cron /var/log/debug /var/log/maillog /var/log/messages /var/log/secure /var/log/spooler /var/log/syslog reading config info for /var/log/wtmp reading config info for /var/log/btmp error: bad year 1970 for file /var/log/syslog in state file /var/lib/logrotate.statusHandling 3 logsrotating pattern: /var/log/cron /var/log/debug /var/log/maillog /var/log/messages /var/log/secure /var/log/spooler /var/log/syslog  weekly (4 rotations)empty log files are rotated, old logs are removedconsidering log /var/log/cron  log does not need rotatingconsidering log /var/log/debug  log does not need rotatingconsidering log /var/log/maillog  log does not need rotatingconsidering log /var/log/messages  log does not need rotatingconsidering log /var/log/secure  log does not need rotatingconsidering log /var/log/spooler  log does not need rotatingconsidering log /var/log/syslog  log does not need rotatingnot running postrotate script, since no logs were rotatedrotating pattern: /var/log/wtmp  monthly (1 rotations)empty log files are rotated, only log files >= 1048576 bytes are rotated, old logs are removedconsidering log /var/log/wtmp  log does not need rotatingrotating pattern: /var/log/btmp  monthly (1 rotations)empty log files are rotated, old logs are removedconsidering log /var/log/btmp  log does not need rotatingerror: could not read state file, will not attempt to write into itNote that it complains that syslog has a bad year 1970 in logrotate status file /var/log/logrotate.status, which shows like this:logrotate state -- version 2/var/log/syslog 1970-1-1/var/log/debug 1970-1-1/var/log/wtmp 1970-1-1/var/log/spooler 1970-1-1/var/log/btmp 1970-1-1/var/log/maillog 1970-1-1/var/log/httpd/*_log 1970-1-1/var/log/wpa_supplicant.log 1970-1-1/var/log/secure 1970-1-1/var/log/mcelog 1970-1-1/var/log/messages 1970-1-1/var/log/cron 1970-1-1/var/log/vsftpd.log 1970-1-1And in the end it says it will not attempt to write into the state file, so now I'm worried if that means the logs won't be rotated correctly. Does anyone know what happens to logrotate when something like this occurs?The chance of power failing where the system will be installed is low, so I prefer to leave time set correctly, but I'd really like to confirm that, in the event it fails, logrotate won't be screwed up.
Does setting the system time back impair logrotate operation?
time;logrotate;reboot