At first I was thinking there had to be a bug in the Apache logrotate script in CentOS 6.4, then I noticed they’ve by default disabled compression of all logs .
$ grep compress /etc/logrotate.conf # uncomment this if you want your log files compressed #compress $
I can see why they would do it: disk space is no longer a concern for the majority of users. Making logs just a fraction more difficult to parse may have — to whoever made the decision — outweigh the benefit of compressing them.
Yeah, I see your point. Problem is when web app X suddenly log like crazy ( DOS attempt or simply a bug). Compressing logs isn’t the solution, but it may buy you some time. Unexpected things tend to happen in the weekends :p