title: about db2 log file archive and cleanup
body: <p>I would like to start planning some disk cleanup for the machine where my db2 server is running now but it is not 100% clear how db2  might be affected when it comes to remove log files.</p>
  
  <p>The configuration parameters for my db of interest says</p>
  
  <pre><code>Path To Log Files                          = /url_folder_log               
  First log archive method (LOGARCHMETH1)    = DISK:/url_folder_arch
  Log retain for recovery enable (LOGRETAIN) = OFF
  Second log archive method   (LOGARCHMETH2) = OFF
  User exit for logging enabled   (USEREXIT) = OFF
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>where <code>/url_folder_arch</code> is eating all the hard disk space.</p>
  
  <p>As far as I understood (please correct me if I am wrong) db2 is backing up (better to say 'archiving') log files from <code>/url_folder_log/</code> into <code>/url_folder_arch</code> while it is running and in background.</p>
  
  <p>I am tempted to move the majority of oldest log files from <code>/url_folder_arch</code> to some backup storage: is it safe to do that?</p>
  
  <p>When are these 'archive log files' are really used and might be necessary?</p>
  
  <p>Reading it seems that logs are involved in 2 processes</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>database backup</li>
  <li>rollforward recovery (for which my db seems NOT enabled).</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>If this is the case do I really need to keep all of those archive log files?
  At some point it might have the necessity also to delete these files.</p>