Scenario

The /var directory contains logs from multiple applications, and cleanup planning is needed. Some applications create their own subdirectories with nested log files.

Task

Find and count all files ending with the .log extension anywhere under /var including subdirectories, save the total count to /home/devops/log_count.txt, and use standard Linux commands to output only the total number of .log files found. Additionally, identify .log files larger than 512 KB and save the count to /home/devops/large_log_count.txt

Step 1: Search recursively for all .log files under /var

find /var -type f -name "*.log" 2>/dev/null

The -type f filters to only regular files (excludes directories, symlinks), and 2>/dev/null suppresses permission denied errors.

Step 2: Count the files and save to a file

find /var -type f -name "*.log" 2>/dev/null | wc -l > /home/devops/log_count.txt

Pipes the output to wc -l which counts lines (each file path is one line), then redirects the count to /home/devops/log_count.txt.

Step 3: Identify large .log files (greater than 512 KB) and save their count

find /var -type f -name "*.log" -size +512k 2>/dev/null | wc -l > /home/devops/large_log_count.txt

Filters .log files larger than 512 KB (expressed in kilobytes, since find -size does not support decimals), counts them, and saves the result to /home/devops/large_log_count.txt.