Let’s take this one line at a time.
Removing old log files:
This line would be followed by a list of the files removed. The list is empty, indicating no files were removed (unless you edited the report). The only files that would have been removed, if there were any, are crash reports (in
/Library/Logs/CrashReporter ) that have not been accessed in at least 60 days.
Removing old temporary files:
Again, the list of removed files is empty. This would remove temporary files in
/tmp that have not been accessed in at least 3 days. The
/tmp directory is cleared as part of start-up, so a computer that is shut down every night will never have any file to delete here.
Cleaning out old system announcements:
Removing stale files from /var/rwho:
These are both somewhat anachronistic chores that apply to computers used as Unix workstations, in a cluster with other Unix workstations.
Removing scratch fax files
Irrelevant, unless you regularly use your computer as a fax machine.
Rotating accounting logs and gathering statistics:
I don’t have this line in my reports. You must have “system accounting” turned on. Most users would not have this. This step might be important with accounting enabled, but it is irrelevant for most people.
In Leopard/Snow Leopard most system logs are handled by a different utility,
newsyslog, that runs every 30 minutes. It has a list of log files that it watches, and rules for each for when to rotate. Most logs are rotated when they reach 1MB. The file
/var/log/system.log is rotated only at midnight, so that might be a problem for computers that are never awake at midnight. Running periodic daily won’t do anything about that.
