README

Automatically compress daily-rotated Laravel log files to tar.gz archives with optional AES-256 password encryption. Reduce storage costs and simplify log management.

Features

✅ Auto-discover daily channels from logging configuration
✅ Smart file detection finds logs matching {base}-YYYY-MM-DD.log pattern
✅ Optional encryption AES-256-CBC via OpenSSL with PBKDF2 hashing
✅ Configurable retention skip logs newer than N days (default: 1)
✅ Safe deletion remove originals only after successful compression
✅ Auto-scheduled runs daily automatically, zero config needed
✅ Manual & scheduled Artisan command + custom scheduler support
✅ Error resilience continue processing on individual file errors, report all issues
✅ Secure passwords passed via environment variables, never exposed in process list

Requirements

Component	Version
PHP	8.1+
Laravel	10.x, 11.x, 12.x, 13.x
System Tools	`tar`, `openssl` (for encryption)

Typical Linux/macOS installations have both tools. Windows requires GNU tar/openssl.

Installation

Via Composer

composer require vocweb/laravel-log-compress

The package auto-registers via Laravel's package discovery.

Publish Configuration (Optional)

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=log-compress-config

This creates config/log-compress.php in your Laravel project.

Configuration

Environment Variables

Add to your .env file:

# Optional: Set encryption password
LOG_COMPRESS_PASSWORD=your_secure_password_here

# Optional: Disable auto-schedule (default: true)
LOG_COMPRESS_AUTO_SCHEDULE=true

# Optional: Change schedule time (default: 00:00)
LOG_COMPRESS_SCHEDULE_TIME=00:00

Configuration File

Edit config/log-compress.php:

return [
    // Encryption password (overrides env if set)
    'password' => env('LOG_COMPRESS_PASSWORD', null),

    // Delete original log files after successful compression
    'delete_after_compress' => true,

    // Only compress logs older than N days (prevents active log compression)
    'older_than_days' => 1,

    // Automatically schedule daily compression (default: true)
    'auto_schedule' => env('LOG_COMPRESS_AUTO_SCHEDULE', true),

    // Time of day for auto-scheduled compression (24h format)
    'schedule_time' => env('LOG_COMPRESS_SCHEDULE_TIME', '00:00'),
];

Usage

Manual Compression

Compress all eligible daily log files:

php artisan log:compress

With Password Override

Encrypt archives with a specific password (overrides config):

php artisan log:compress --password=my_secure_password

Auto-Scheduled Execution

By default, the package automatically registers a daily scheduled task to compress logs. No manual setup required — just ensure your Laravel scheduler is running:

# Add to crontab (if not already configured)
* * * * * cd /path-to-your-project && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Configure Auto-Schedule

Via .env:

# Disable auto-schedule (default: true)
LOG_COMPRESS_AUTO_SCHEDULE=false

# Change schedule time (default: 00:00)
LOG_COMPRESS_SCHEDULE_TIME=02:00

Manual Schedule (if auto-schedule is disabled)

If you set LOG_COMPRESS_AUTO_SCHEDULE=false, register the schedule manually:

Laravel 10 — app/Console/Kernel.php:

protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule)
{
    $schedule->command('log:compress')->dailyAt('02:00');
}

Laravel 11 — routes/console.php:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schedule;

Schedule::command('log:compress')->dailyAt('02:00');

Laravel 12 / 13 — bootstrap/app.php:

use Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule;

->withSchedule(function (Schedule $schedule) {
    $schedule->command('log:compress')->dailyAt('02:00');
})

How It Works

Discovery

Scans all channels in config/logging.php
Identifies channels with driver: daily

Selection

For each daily channel, finds log files:
- Pattern: {base_path}-YYYY-MM-DD.log
- Age: older than older_than_days setting
- Status: not already compressed

Compression

Creates tar.gz archive using system tar command
If password configured: encrypts with OpenSSL AES-256-CBC
Cleans up partial files on failure

Cleanup

Deletes original log file (if delete_after_compress: true)
Reports count of compressed files and any errors

Decrypting Encrypted Archives

If you encrypted logs with a password, decrypt them:

# Decrypt to stdout
openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -pbkdf2 -pass pass:your_password -in laravel-2024-01-15.log.tar.gz | tar xz

# Or extract directly to a directory
openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -pbkdf2 -pass pass:your_password -in laravel-2024-01-15.log.tar.gz | tar xz -C /path/to/extract

# Save decrypted archive (unencrypted tar.gz)
openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -pbkdf2 -pass pass:your_password -in laravel-2024-01-15.log.tar.gz -out laravel-2024-01-15.log.tar.gz.decrypted
tar xzf laravel-2024-01-15.log.tar.gz.decrypted

Example Workflow

Setup

# 1. Install package
composer require vocweb/laravel-log-compress

# 2. Set encryption password in .env
echo "LOG_COMPRESS_PASSWORD=MySecurePass123" >> .env

# 3. Publish config (optional)
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=log-compress-config

# 4. Auto-schedule is enabled by default (runs daily at 00:00)
# To customize: set LOG_COMPRESS_SCHEDULE_TIME=02:00 in .env

Daily Operation

2024-01-14 23:59:59 - Laravel writes to storage/logs/laravel-2024-01-14.log
2024-01-15 00:00:00 - New day, Laravel creates laravel-2024-01-15.log
2024-01-15 02:00:00 - Scheduled: php artisan log:compress
  ✓ Finds laravel-2024-01-14.log (older than 1 day)
  ✓ Creates laravel-2024-01-14.log.tar.gz (encrypted)
  ✓ Deletes laravel-2024-01-14.log
  → storage/logs/laravel-2024-01-14.log.tar.gz (encrypted, ~1% of original size)

Retrieve Old Logs

# List encrypted archive contents
openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -pbkdf2 -pass pass:MySecurePass123 -in laravel-2024-01-14.log.tar.gz | tar tzf -

# Extract specific log
openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -pbkdf2 -pass pass:MySecurePass123 -in laravel-2024-01-14.log.tar.gz | tar xzOf - laravel-2024-01-14.log | grep "error"

Logging Configuration

Ensure you have a daily channel in config/logging.php:

'channels' => [
    'daily' => [
        'driver' => 'daily',
        'path' => storage_path('logs/laravel.log'),
        'level' => env('LOG_LEVEL', 'debug'),
        'days' => 14,
    ],
    // other channels...
],

Multiple daily channels are supported and will all be compressed.

Output & Status Codes

Successful Compression

Scanning for daily log files to compress...
Compressed 5 log file(s).

Exit code: 0

No Files Found

Scanning for daily log files to compress...
No log files found to compress.

Exit code: 0

With Errors

Scanning for daily log files to compress...
Compressed 3 log file(s).
[error] Failed to compress /path/to/laravel-2024-01-10.log: Permission denied
[error] Failed to delete original /path/to/laravel-2024-01-09.log: ...

Exit code: 1

Security Notes

Passwords: Never stored in config; use .env file only
Process safety: Passwords passed via environment variables, hidden from ps aux
Encryption: AES-256-CBC with PBKDF2 (10,000 iterations), industry-standard
Path safety: Real path resolution prevents directory traversal attacks
File handling: Atomic operations; partial files cleaned up on failure

Troubleshooting

"tar: command not found"

Install tar: apt-get install tar (Debian/Ubuntu) or brew install gnu-tar (macOS)

"openssl: command not found" (with encryption enabled)

Install openssl: apt-get install openssl or brew install openssl

Permission denied errors

Ensure Laravel process has read access to log files
Ensure write access to log directory (for deletion)

Encrypted archives not decrypting

Verify password: check .env matches password used at compression time
Use -pass pass:your_password in openssl command (or -pass stdin to prompt)

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Credits

Created by vocweb. Inspired by the need to manage large production log archives efficiently.

vocweb / laravel-log-compress

Maintainers

Package info

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