Where can I find the error logs of nginx, using FastCGI and Django?

Question

I'm using Django with FastCGI + nginx. Where are the logs (errors) stored in this case?

score 574 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 27 '20 at 17:16

574

Errors are stored in the nginx log file. You can specify it in the root of the nginx configuration file:

error_log  /var/log/nginx/nginx_error.log  warn;

On Mac OS X with Homebrew, the log file was found by default at the following location:

/usr/local/var/log/nginx

edited Jun 27 '20 at 17:16

Peter Mortensen

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answered Nov 10 '09 at 11:30

syava

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That's maybe version dependent but my log is inside: `/opt/nginx/logs/error.log` – jmarceli Apr 29 '15 at 23:26
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on Mac OS X with homebrew: /usr/local/var/log/nginx. see lfender's [answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/27402568/576767) – Félix Adriyel Gagnon-Grenier Nov 17 '15 at 17:34
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On ubuntu I have it in `/var/log/nginx/error.log`. It is best to check the `nginx.conf` file and find the `error_log` setting. – MarthyM Dec 15 '16 at 13:06
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Found mine at /opt/homebrew/var/log/nginx/error.log lol. Currently on macOS 13 (Ventura). Also seems you could run `nginx -h` to view the default log output directory. – takanuva15 Apr 11 '23 at 19:16

score 339 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 27 '20 at 17:18

339

I was looking for a different solution.

Error logs, by default, before any configuration is set, on my system (x86 Arch Linux), was found in:

/var/log/nginx/error.log

edited Jun 27 '20 at 17:18

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 01 '13 at 09:10

Ben

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Apparently this is configureable only at compile time with the `--error-log-path` compile option http://trac.nginx.org/nginx/ticket/147 – Michael Berkowski Oct 21 '14 at 14:57
on raspberry pi3 its the location – Jan Bludau Apr 19 '18 at 17:12

score 198 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 11 '20 at 23:24

198

You can use lsof (list of open files) in most cases to find open log files without knowing the configuration.

Example:

Find the PID of httpd (the same concept applies for nginx and other programs):

$ ps aux | grep httpd
...
root     17970  0.0  0.3 495964 64388 ?        Ssl  Oct29   3:45 /usr/sbin/httpd
...

Then search for open log files using lsof with the PID:

$ lsof -p 17970 | grep log
httpd   17970 root    2w   REG             253,15     2278      6723 /var/log/httpd/error_log
httpd   17970 root   12w   REG             253,15        0      1387 /var/log/httpd/access_log

If lsof prints nothing, even though you expected the log files to be found, issue the same command using sudo.

You can read a little more here.

edited Jul 11 '20 at 23:24

Peter Mortensen

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answered Dec 10 '14 at 16:06

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it's a nice trick to remember.. no guessing any more where the log files could be – Yo Ludke Jan 13 '15 at 08:47
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this taught me how to fish; wish I could upvote more – kurttheviking Mar 24 '15 at 16:58
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+1 For an answer on how to look. I was looking for logs from a different installation of nginx and it wasn't in the top answer. – Robert Dundon Dec 09 '16 at 15:23
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you can poke at similar data on linux in the `/proc` filesystem. `/proc/${pid}/fd` has symlinks to the open files, pipes, devices, etc – Avindra Goolcharan Aug 13 '19 at 18:49
while using [$ ps aux | grep httpd] I got =auto httpd (in red). do you know what it means please? – Debbie Jul 28 '22 at 20:49

score 117 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 22 '18 at 23:38

117

Run this command, to check error logs:

tail -f /var/log/nginx/error.log

edited Feb 22 '18 at 23:38

ndmeiri

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answered Oct 05 '15 at 15:37

Taimoor Changaiz

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random-forest-cat · Answer 5 · 2016-06-16T16:56:13.720

My ngninx logs are located here:

/usr/local/var/log/nginx/*

You can also check your nginx.conf to see if you have any directives dumping to custom log.

run nginx -t to locate your nginx.conf.

# in ngingx.conf
error_log  /usr/local/var/log/nginx/error.log;
error_log  /usr/local/var/log/nginx/error.log  notice;
error_log  /usr/local/var/log/nginx/error.log  info;

Nginx is usually set up in /usr/local or /etc/. The server could be configured to dump logs to /var/log as well.

If you have an alternate location for your nginx install and all else fails, you could use the find command to locate your file of choice.

find /usr/ -path "*/nginx/*" -type f -name '*.log', where /usr/ is the folder you wish to start searching from.

The logs will be here if you installed Nginx with Homebrew. – Sridhar Sarnobat Aug 27 '19 at 17:53 — Sridhar Sarnobat, Aug 27 '19 at 17:53

score 22 · Answer 6 · edited Jul 11 '20 at 23:26

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Logs location on Linux servers:

Apache – /var/log/httpd/

IIS – C:\inetpub\wwwroot\

Node.js – /var/log/nodejs/

nginx – /var/log/nginx/

Passenger – /var/app/support/logs/

Puma – /var/log/puma/

Python – /opt/python/log/

Tomcat – /var/log/tomcat8

edited Jul 11 '20 at 23:26

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 06 '18 at 12:34

Syed Shibli

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score 9 · Answer 7 · edited Jul 11 '20 at 23:24

9

Type this command in the terminal:

sudo cat /var/log/nginx/error.log

edited Jul 11 '20 at 23:24

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jan 04 '18 at 06:05

priyasha

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That is not an answer and should be a comment instead. Once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment. – mrun Jan 04 '18 at 06:25

score 8 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 26 '21 at 03:48

For Mac OS users, you can type nginx -help in your terminal.

nginx version: nginx/1.21.0
Usage: nginx [-?hvVtTq] [-s signal] [-p prefix]
             [-e filename] [-c filename] [-g directives]

Options:
  -?,-h         : this help
  -v            : show version and exit
  -V            : show version and configure options then exit
  -t            : test configuration and exit
  -T            : test configuration, dump it and exit
  -q            : suppress non-error messages during configuration testing
  -s signal     : send signal to a master process: stop, quit, reopen, reload
  -p prefix     : set prefix path (default: /opt/homebrew/Cellar/nginx/1.21.0/)
  -e filename   : set error log file (default: /opt/homebrew/var/log/nginx/error.log)
  -c filename   : set configuration file (default: /opt/homebrew/etc/nginx/nginx.conf)
  -g directives : set global directives out of configuration file

Then, you could find some default path for configuration and log files, in this case:

/opt/homebrew/log/nginx/error.log

score 4 · Answer 9 · edited Jun 09 '15 at 08:54

4

cd /var/log/nginx/
cat error.log

edited Jun 09 '15 at 08:54

Mariusz Jamro

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answered Jun 09 '15 at 06:12

user4989001

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araldhafeeri · Answer 10 · 2021-01-07T04:03:01.403

It is a good practice to set where the access log should be in nginx configuring file . Using acces_log /path/ Like this.

keyval $remote_addr:$http_user_agent $seen zone=clients;

server { listen 443 ssl;

ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
ssl_ciphers   HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;

if ($seen = "") {
    set $seen  1;
    set $logme 1;
}
access_log  /tmp/sslparams.log sslparams if=$logme;
error_log  /pathtolog/error.log;
# ...
}

Where can I find the error logs of nginx, using FastCGI and Django?

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