dIn message <20030210234517.J7389@snowdrop.l8s.co.uk>, David Laight writes:
>> newsyslog is executed hourly by default.
>
>Yes, it cleans away /var/log/messages in no time at all.
>Until I changed things I was getting much less that 1 day's
>worth of messages in all 5 files!

Agreed.  The current default has always struck me as seriously weird.  
I run it daily.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb (me)
		http://www.wilyhacker.com (2nd edition of "Firewalls" book)