Real-Time Logs

The “Log” command allows you to visualize logs in real time generated as a history of the various events on our server, either by the access of visitors to the pages of the hosted sites or by the different tools that are executed internally.

Whether you want to debug an error, monitor an application or tool (php, mail, mysql, etc) or simply detect a visitor, bot, etc., among other applications, it is important to have this tool to do it easily, quickly and in real time.

Syntax:

sudo log <domain> <option>

Options:

  • -error
  • -le
  • -mail
  • –mysql
  • -only-error
  • –php
  • -purge
  • -ssh
  • -syslog
  • -wp

Examples:

# Enable WP Debug mode
sudo log example.com -wp=on

# Enable access log
sudo log example.com -only-error=off

# See your logs in real-time
sudo log example.com

* Use Ctrl+C to exit or end.

Nginx Access Logs

By default, the Nginx Access logs are disabled.

To activate the general access log and apply to all the new sites created after this.

sudo log -only-error=off

To activate the log of a particular site.

sudo log example.com -only-error=off

We can deactivate it again using the -only-error=on option.

Nginx Log Format and Metrics

When access log is enabled it can be used to collect a lot of very valuable metrics. Additional to the standard format, we have included an extended log format to facilitate the integration with external tools like Datadog or Amplify. In the Webinoly Configuration File, just set nginx-log-format:extended, also, the Nginx error log level can be changed here.

A custom log format can be set to include your own metrics, in this case just set nginx-log-format:custom and include your own configuration here: /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf.log using the we_log_custom name.

Webinoly has native integration with Datadog

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How can I view my website access log?

To view the log for a particular site:

sudo log example.com

To view the access log of all websites hosted on my server:

sudo log

The above options only show the access event log, but omit the “error” events.

How can I view the error log?

For example, we might want to see the “warning” or “error” of our WordPress site generated by PHP during the execution of a particular page.

sudo log example.com -error

Similarly, if we wanted to see the error log generated by all the sites hosted on the server, we use the following command:

sudo log -error

* You can change the number of lines that the output of log command will show, by default is 10. You can always add the -lines argument to any log command: sudo log example.com -lines=25 or for a more permanent solution, you can modify this value directly in the Webinoly configuration file using the log-lines:25 variable.

** Access and error logs are domain-wide, so the -subfolder parameter will be ignored, except for WordPress sites where this parameter is needed to enable the debug mode in WP for a specific site when it is installed in a subfolder, but even in this case, logs will still be domain-wide.

WordPress Debug

When we have configured the Debug mode in WordPress in the wp-config.php file we have the option to generate a debug.log file, usually located in the /wp-content folder.

To view in real time from the command line the events generated in this file we use the following command:

sudo log example.com -wp

Also, we have an option to enable/disable (on/off) the WordPress debug mode on any of your sites:

sudo log example.com -wp=on

WordPress debug mode have an option to show the debug messages inside HTML pages and is enabled by default. To disable this feature and only send the debug messages to the log-file:

sudo log example.com -wp=on -display=off

Also, you can set the WordPress Environment Type from here: sudo log example.com -wp=on -env=development.

How can I see the log generated by an application or tool?

Webinoly supports the visualization of events generated by PHP, MySQL, mail, syslog, SSH and Let’s Encrypt.

sudo log -php
sudo log -ssh
sudo log -mail
sudo log -syslog
sudo log -le

The -fpm and -php options are equivalent and -le is for “Let’s Encrypt”.

MySQL logs

The error log is always enabled.

sudo log -mysql=error

* On servers created before v1.11.0 all MySQL logs are sent to Syslog, which is the default MySQL configuration, since this version we have changed this to have an individual file.

The general log includes all queries and is very useful for debugging or auditing queries.

sudo log -mysql=general
sudo log -mysql=general -enable
sudo log -mysql=general -disable

The slow query log includes all queries that takes more than -long-query-time (default is 10s) to run and is very useful to find queries that causes performance problems.

sudo log -mysql=slow
sudo log -mysql=slow -enable
sudo log -mysql=slow -enable -long-query-time=3
sudo log -mysql=slow -disable

Binary log is mainly used by replication.

sudo log -mysql=binary
sudo log -mysql=binary -enable
sudo log -mysql=binary -disable

Purge log files

Permanently remove all files with the GZ extension (rotated logs) from the /var/log directory.

sudo log -purge

Use the -purge=force option to skip questions.

Also, you can remove the log files from a specific package (nginx, letsencrypt, mysql, redis, all, force):

sudo log -purge=nginx

Personal advice: If your disk space is so small that archived logs are too much to handle, get a bigger server.

If you have any suggestions, ideas, or comments, or if you (gasp!) found a bug, join us in the Community Forum.