How to get raw webserver logs from cPanel
by Paul Flyer
For beginners, accessing the raw webserver logs may seem a bit of a mystery even a tad intimidating. If you are interested in looking at your own raw logs and are using a host that uses cpanel (most do) then this little tutorial will show you how to do it.
Most cpanel installations are the same. However, hosts can choose to customize the interface. These instructions follow the more common generic set up.
- Find icon that say Raw Access Logs
- Click it
- A list of logs appears.
- Typically, the log that appears here is only todays.
- Hover over the link.
- Name of the file appears in the bottom status bar.
- Name will look something like:
http://www.yoursitename.com:2082/getaccesslog/
accesslog_yoursitename.com_9_7_2006.gz
- Notice the date connected to the file.
- Right click the link
- CHoose save as and save the file to your desktop.
- You can then look at the file at your leisure via your favorite text editor.
There are several web statistics applications that look solely at your log files. If you are interested in using an application to interpret your raw logs for you, take a look at Logaholic (I am in the process of reviewing logaholic but won’t have a review up until maybe October.)
Since it is a pain to log in and download your log files everyday. You can set things up to save a monthly log file.
- Find the icon that says Raw Log Manager
- Click check box that says “Archive Logs in your home directory at the end of each stats run [every 1 day(s)]
“ - This message may vary depending on your web host.
- Click save.
- Cpanel will then begin to accumulate all daily stats into a single monthly file that is accessible either through the raw log manager or directly from your home directory.
[tags]cpanel, logs, raw[/tags]
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