Log Archive CLI Tool

A lightweight, secure command-line tool for archiving system logs with timestamps.
Designed for Unix-based systems and DevOps workflows, with both local and Docker usage in mind. More about this project roadmap can be found here: Roadmap.sh Project Page

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✨ Features

• Archive logs from any directory
• Timestamped .tar.gz archives
• Centralized archive storage
• Simple CLI interface
• Cron-friendly
• Docker-ready (small, optimized image)
• Explicit, documented security decisions

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📦 Project Structure

log-archive-cli/
├── log-archive      # Main CLI script
├── install.sh       # Local installation script
├── Dockerfile       # Optimized Docker image
├── .dockerignore
├── .gitignore
└── README.md

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🚀 Local Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/hackhawk-arch/log-archive-cli.git
cd log-archive-cli

Run the installer:

chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

This installs the command to:

/usr/local/bin/log-archive

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▶️ Local Usage

log-archive /var/log

Some system logs require elevated privileges:

sudo log-archive /var/log

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📁 Archive Output

Archives are stored in:

~/log-archives/

Each archive is named using the format:

logs-YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.tar.gz

A log of archive operations is written to:

~/log-archives/archive.log

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🐳 Docker Usage (Recommended)

Build the image

docker build -t log-archive .

Run the container

docker run --rm \
  -v /var/log:/logs:ro \
  -v $HOME/log-archives:/root/log-archives \
  log-archive /logs

Notes

• Host logs are mounted read-only
• Archives are written to the host
• Container exits immediately after completion

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🔐 Security Notes (Docker)

This container runs as root by design.

The tool performs system maintenance tasks that require read access to host log files (e.g. /var/log). The container is:

• Short-lived (one-shot execution)
• Not network-exposed
• Not listening on any ports
• Processing trusted local input only
• Mounting host logs as read-only

This design aligns with the principle of least privilege for administrative maintenance tools, where elevated access is required only for the duration of execution.

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🛠 Requirements

Local

• Bash or POSIX shell
• tar
• Unix-based OS

Docker

• Docker Engine (recommended approach)

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⏱️ Scheduling with Cron (Optional)

To archive logs daily at midnight:

crontab -e

Add:

0 0 * * * /usr/local/bin/log-archive /var/log

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🧠 Design Philosophy

• Simple over clever
• Explicit over implicit
• Short-lived containers over long-running services
• Documented security trade-offs
• Minimal dependencies and small image size

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🔜 Future Improvements

Planned enhancements include:

• --dry-run and --verbose flags
• Archive retention / cleanup policies
• Docker Hub publishing
• GitHub Actions CI (shellcheck + docker build)
• Optional compression level tuning

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📄 License

MIT License