Right.
Further thinking about it, I see it makes sense.

I recall (?) thinking about that but did not see the need for the rotated files.
I'll look into that, thanks for the heads up.

Yes, I have seen that done.
And taking into account how unintelligible they are ...

But I have found that they have been a sort of reference for comparison purposes between boots.
Not that I actually solved anything.  8^7

Thanks a lot for your input.

Best,

A.

But I would just use the size option described in logrotate(8) to control how big the files get before being rotated.

EDIT: and I would delete ~/.xsession-errors at the start of every X session because there doesn't seem much point keeping error logs from old sessions.

To wit:

echo 'rm ~/.xsession-errors' >> ~/.xsessionrc

See also https://wiki.debian.org/Xsession

I see.
Crontab runs as the user that added the scripts so my only options are:

1. to put the lines needing root credentials in /etc/cron.d.
2. add them to via sudo crontab-e to root's crontab.

Is this so?

Thanks in advance,

A.

-rw-r----- 1 root        adm    6639408 Apr  9 17:20 boot
[...]
-rw-r----- 1 root        adm     105594 Apr  9 18:35 cron.log
-rw-r----- 1 root        adm   14428210 Apr  4 06:50 cron.log.1

Those permissions indicate that root can read or write to the files but members of the adm group can only read them.

Now that my cron issues were taken care of, I now see the errors that crop up when it actually runs as intended.  8^7

My crontab has these three entries with the purpose of keeping log files to a manageable size till the time they get rotated:

# 1. For /home/groucho/.xsession-errors
# ---
0 */23 * * *  [ $(du -k .xsession-errors | awk '{ print $1 }') -gt 5000 ] && tail -200 /home/$(whoami)/.xsession-errors > /home/$(whoami$
# ---
#
# 2. For /var/log/boot (bootlogd)
# ---
0 */23 * * *  [ $(du -k /var/log/boot | awk '{ print $1 }') -gt 5000 ] && tail -200 /var/log/boot > /var/log/boot
# ---

# 3. For /var/log/cron.log
# ---
0 */23 * * *  [ $(du -k /var/log/cron.log | awk '{ print $1 }') -gt 5000 ] && tail -200 /var/log/cron.log > /var/log/cron.log
# ---

The first one has no issues, it is for the prolific .xsession-errors living at /home.

But the other two need admin rights:

groucho@devuan:~$ tail -200 /var/log/boot > /var/log/boot
bash: /var/log/boot: Permission denied
groucho@devuan:~$ 

groucho@devuan:~$ tail -200 /var/log/cron.log > /var/log/cron.log
bash: /var/log/cron.log: Permission denied
groucho@devuan:~$ 

My user belongs to a miriad of groups:

groucho@devuan:~$ groups
groucho adm lp mail dialout fax cdrom floppy tape sudo audio dip www-data backup video plugdev staff users crontab netdev lpadmin scanner saned fuse powerdev debian-exim
groucho@devuan:~$ 

As you can see, adm is one of them.
But doesn't adm have rights over /var/log/boot and /var/log/cron.log?

groucho@devuan:~$ 
groucho@devuan:~$ ls -l /var/log | grep adm |grep boot
-rw-r----- 1 root        adm    6639408 Apr  9 17:20 boot
groucho@devuan:~$ 

groucho@devuan:~$ 
groucho@devuan:~$ ls -l /var/log | grep adm |grep cron.log
-rw-r----- 1 root        adm     105594 Apr  9 18:35 cron.log
-rw-r----- 1 root        adm   14428210 Apr  4 06:50 cron.log.1
groucho@devuan:~$ 

What am I missing?

Thanks in advance,

A.