Recipe 22.11. Using Individual Log Files for Virtual Hosts

22.11.1 Problem

Your virtual hosts are pretty busy, and sorting out a single log file is getting difficult. How can you give each virtual host its own log file?

22.11.2 Solution

Alter the httpd.conf entries for each virtual host so that they have their own log files:

 <VirtualHost *:80>  ServerName  www.tuxcomputing.com  ServerAlias  tuxcomputing.com  *.tuxcomputing.com  DocumentRoot /var/www/tuxcomputing  ErrorLog  /var/www/tuxcomputing/logs error_log  AccessLog  /var/www/tuxcomputing/logs access_log combined  ServerAdmin  [e-mail]  </VirtualHost>

22.11.3 Discussion

Note that the AccessLog specifies a particular log format with the nickname "combined." There are four ready-made LogFormat directives in httpd.conf:

LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b" common LogFormat "%{Referer}i -> %U" referer LogFormat "%{User-agent}i" agent

If these do not please you, you can easily create your own. See http://localhost/manual/mod/mod_log_config.html for a complete description of the available variables. This is what the variables in the "combined" LogFormat mean:

%h

Remote host

%l

Remote logname, from identd

%u

Remote user

%t

Time

\"%r

First line of request

\" %>s

Status on redirections, this is the status of the original request

%b

Bytes sent, excluding HTTP headers

\"%{Referer}i\"

Contents of the Referer line in the HTTP header

\"%{User-Agent}i\"

Contents of the User-agent line in the HTTP header

22.11.4 See Also

• http://localhost/manual/mod/mod_log_config.html

• Recipe 4.9 in Apache Cookbook