diff --git a/cluster/gce/gci/configure-helper.sh b/cluster/gce/gci/configure-helper.sh
index 4f657f83f93..f854538a791 100644
--- a/cluster/gce/gci/configure-helper.sh
+++ b/cluster/gce/gci/configure-helper.sh
@@ -77,12 +77,21 @@ function setup-logrotate() {
     compress
     maxsize 10M
     daily
+    dateext
+    dateformat -%Y%m%d-%s
     create 0644 root root
 }
 EOF
 
   # Configuration for k8s services that redirect logs to /var/log/<service>.log
-  # files.
+  # files. Whenever logrotate is ran, this config will:
+  # * rotate the log file if its size is > 100Mb OR if one day has elapsed
+  # * save rotated logs into a gzipped timestamped backup
+  # * log file timestamp (controlled by 'dateformat') includes seconds too. this
+  #   ensures that logrotate can generate unique logfiles during each rotation
+  #   (otherwise it skips rotation if 'maxsize' is reached multiple times in a
+  #   day).
+  # * keep only 5 old (rotated) logs, and will discard older logs.
   local logrotate_files=( "kube-scheduler" "kube-proxy" "kube-apiserver" "kube-controller-manager" "kube-addons" )
   for file in "${logrotate_files[@]}" ; do
     cat > /etc/logrotate.d/${file} <<EOF
@@ -92,8 +101,10 @@ EOF
     missingok
     notifempty
     compress
-    size 100M
+    maxsize 100M
     daily
+    dateext
+    dateformat -%Y%m%d-%s
     create 0644 root root
 }
 EOF
diff --git a/cluster/saltbase/salt/logrotate/conf b/cluster/saltbase/salt/logrotate/conf
index 91db9285ca4..0f6fc19579f 100644
--- a/cluster/saltbase/salt/logrotate/conf
+++ b/cluster/saltbase/salt/logrotate/conf
@@ -4,8 +4,10 @@
     missingok
     notifempty
     compress
-    size 100M
+    maxsize 100M
     daily
+    dateext
+    dateformat -%Y%m%d-%s
     create 0644 root root
 }