Hello,
1) Please ensure you're using DA 1.40.3. Since this feature was introduced a few versions ago, many optimizations and improvements have been made.
Regarding the rotation of the brute_log_entries.list file, the newer optimized method reads each line, one at a time.
It then checks the date of each line, which is stored the first portion of the line (index) at the left.
If the date is within the range, it's to be kept, so is appended to a temp file (brute_log_entries.list.temp) as it goes.
The previous method would try and read in the entire brute_log_entries.list file, sort it, go through each entry from the very large memory-set, delete them (which triggers a resort) and then saves. Wasn't very efficient, hence the new method is about as sleek as it can get.
2) If all else fails (sometimes the file is just too big), you can use the old workaround, which is step 4:
http://help.directadmin.com/item.php?id=402
3) Although it shouldn't matter once everything is running, initial runs on the /var/log/* files can be slow if they're very large.
Changing /etc/logrotate.conf to have "daily" instead of "weekly" will keep the logs smaller and make the initial run faster.
After the initial run is done, DA notes it's last read position and filesize, and starts from there, to prevent the re-parsing of the entire file (reason not to delete brute.conf)
4) Lower numbers in the Admin settings (with regards to "Cleared failed attempts log") will keep the brute_log_entries.list file smaller and easier to view/manage.
John
