How to customize the access log in Apache HTTPD?

Solution Verified - Updated

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
  • Red Hat Software Collections (RHSCL)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Web Server (EWS)
  • Red Hat JBoss Web Server (JWS)
    • 3.0.x
  • Red Hat JBoss Core Services (JBCS)
  • Apache HTTPD
    • 2.2.x
    • 2.4.x

Issue

  • How to customize the acess log format?
  • How to enable friendly access log times in Apache HTTPD?

Resolution

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

In Apache's httpd.conf search for the following lines:

LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b" common
...(snip)...
CustomLog logs/access_log combined

It's possible to create a custom LogFormat to show more information like the cookies and the time the request takes to finish.

For example, add a third LogFormat:

LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b" common
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b %{Referer}i %{User-Agent}i Cookie: \"%{COOKIE}i\" Set-Cookie: \"%{SET-COOKIE}o\" PID: %P TID: %{tid}P TimeTaken: %T TimeTaken(us): %D" custom

And then, update the CustomLog directive to use the "custom" format instead of combined:

CustomLog logs/access_log custom

A restart is needed for the above to be applied.

After these changes, the access logs generated will be in a format that is much easier to digest at first sight.

For more format parameters, you can check the Content from httpd.apache.org is not included.mod_log_config documentation

Also, if HTTPD is used as a balancer with mod_proxy_balancer, mod_jk, or mod_cluster it's possible to log which backend node handled the request. Refer to How to log which node handled a request from httpd?.

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