Ensure File Permissions Remain After A Reboot

Date

2026-10-27

Kernel

7.2.11-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC | x86_64 GNU/Linux

Arch Linux

I found that after every reboot, file permissions were being changed on /var/log/exim amongst other locations. In the case of Exim's log file permission change, logrotate was then refusing to rotate the logs because of these current permissions.

The solution (for me) was to modify exim.conf in /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d (which is part of the systemd software) as follows:

d /var/spool/exim 0770 root exim - -
d /var/spool/exim/db 0770 exim exim - -
d /var/log/exim 0750 exim root - -

Here is my logrotate configuration for Exim (I try to keep the 'paniclog' empty at all times):

/var/log/exim/mainlog /var/log/exim/rejectlog
create 0640
su exim root
daily
rotate 28
nocompress
notifempty
}