How to customize the access log in NGINX?

Solution Verified - Updated

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
  • Red Hat Software Collections (RHSCL)
  • NGINX Web Server

Issue

  • How to enable friendly access log times in NGINX?

Resolution

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This solution is part of the [Master] Configuring Access Logs in Red Hat Middleware Products..

Update the log_format option in NGINX_HOME/nginx/conf.d/nginx.conf

This is the default configuration:

...
log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                  '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                  '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';
...

Change it with the following:

...
log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                  '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                  '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for" '
                  'cookie="$http_cookie" set-cookie="$sent_http_set_cookie" rt="$request_time"';
...

If you're using the upstram module (nginx-mod-stream) available for NGINX 1.10 or later, you can add the upstream time information as follows:

...
log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                  '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                  '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for" '
                  'cookie="$http_cookie" set-cookie="$sent_http_set_cookie" rt="$request_time" '
                  'uct="$upstream_connect_time" uht="$upstream_header_time" urt="$upstream_response_time"';
...

For more information about NGINX logging, refer the official docs:

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