Currently, there is no policy to recommend adding a logrotate file, and how to add log file to a package. For example, rpmlint warn if there is no logrotate file , but it does that only by checking if there is a log file in the rpm, and sometime, packager can miss it. Checking md5sum of the log file is not a good idea, but i am not sure that using %ghost would be the best way to do it, so best practice should also be documented for that.
The policy could also clarify on the type of signal that should be sent by logrotate, and how this work with systemd, if restarting is ok or not, etc. I am also not sure on how does everything articulate with journald, but this could also be taken in account.
Finally, a quick look on /var/log file show there is no real standard on who can read the log or not. That can be problematic, as people do not know what to expect.
Section 10.8 of debian policy could serve as a start for the policy ( but there isn't much there )
It would help immensely if you would provide a draft for consideration. To be honest I'm not sure it's completely reasonable to standardize things to the level you seem to be asking for, but it would be much easier to have a discussion once there's a draft to look at.
I was more thinking of a "best practice document" than a complete standard so maybe "policy" is not the right way to presnet it, as i do not want to put too much burden on packagers. Rather "here is what to keep in mind for a good log file and for log rotation".
Barring someone actually writing a draft here, this is likely to just stay open forever.
The FPC encourages any motivated party to propose some text, or to simply create a non-Packaging Guidelines page that describes "Best Practices" for making logrotate files.
We already have such proposal due to ticket 142 https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Johannbg/Packaging/LogFiles
Closing, will be addressed under 142.
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