Schedule to recycle the SQL Server Logs

A new SQL Server log file is created each time the SQL service is restarted. On a production server that is very sparingly restarted this can result in enormous log files.

Below is a script to schedule a weekly recycle of the SQL Server Logs. The number of log files is set to 12 before they are recycled. Thereby giving a 3 month long history of the logs.

Other combinations are possible, e.g. make a daily schedule and set the number of files to 30, this way the log files are shorter and the history is one month long.

---- set SQL server log recycle property to Recycle after 12 files

USE [master]

GO

EXEC xp_instance_regwrite N'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE', N'Software\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\MSSQLServer', N'NumErrorLogs', REG_DWORD, 12

GO

---- Create SQL Server Agent Job to do a weekly recycle (Saturday 12:00) of the SQL Server log

USE [msdb]

GO

DECLARE @jobId BINARY(16)

EXEC  msdb.dbo.sp_add_job @job_name=N'MSOL Recycle SQL Server Logs', 

        @enabled=1, 

        @notify_level_eventlog=0, 

        @notify_level_email=2, 

        @notify_level_netsend=2, 

        @notify_level_page=2, 

        @delete_level=0, 

        @category_name=N'Database Maintenance', 

        @owner_login_name=N'sa', 

        @notify_email_operator_name=N'ICT Helpdesk', @job_id = @jobId OUTPUT

select @jobId

GO

EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobserver @job_name=N'MSOL Recycle SQL Server Logs', @server_name = N'VMXYZ'

GO

USE [msdb]

GO

EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobstep @job_name=N'MSOL Recycle SQL Server Logs', @step_name=N'RecycleErrorLog', 

        @step_id=1, 

        @cmdexec_success_code=0, 

        @on_success_action=1, 

        @on_fail_action=2, 

        @retry_attempts=0, 

        @retry_interval=0, 

        @os_run_priority=0, @subsystem=N'TSQL', 

        @command=N'EXEC sp_cycle_errorlog', 

        @database_name=N'master', 

        @flags=0

GO

USE [msdb]

GO

EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_update_job @job_name=N'MSOL Recycle SQL Server Logs', 

        @enabled=1, 

        @start_step_id=1, 

        @notify_level_eventlog=0, 

        @notify_level_email=2, 

        @notify_level_netsend=2, 

        @notify_level_page=2, 

        @delete_level=0, 

        @description=N'', 

        @category_name=N'Database Maintenance', 

        @owner_login_name=N'sa', 

        @notify_email_operator_name=N'ICT Helpdesk', 

        @notify_netsend_operator_name=N'', 

        @notify_page_operator_name=N''

GO

USE [msdb]

GO

DECLARE @schedule_id int

EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobschedule @job_name=N'MSOL Recycle SQL Server Logs', @name=N'Weekly Saturday 12:00', 

        @enabled=1, 

        @freq_type=8, 

        @freq_interval=64, 

        @freq_subday_type=1, 

        @freq_subday_interval=0, 

        @freq_relative_interval=0, 

        @freq_recurrence_factor=1, 

        @active_start_date=20150326, 

        @active_end_date=99991231, 

        @active_start_time=120000, 

        @active_end_time=235959, @schedule_id = @schedule_id OUTPUT

select @schedule_id

GO