Apache Access Log Rotation In AppServ And Xampp

Apache access log rotation in AppServ and Xampp is disable by default. By default,access log will be created in directory path “xampp/apache/logs/access.log” for Xampp and “AppServ/ApacheX.X/logs/access.log” for AppServ. On a busy server, access log will be grows very fast equal to high traffic for apache server. Without rotation, access.log will be very large. Manual rotation by periodically backup existing log cannot be done while apache server is running. In this case, apache continues writing to access.log until the server is stopped.

Small file log will be lighten work load of apache server, because it’s need more resource to handle writing to a big file. In this tutorial, access.log will be rotate daily base, so the name of log will be “access_year-month-date.log” Ex: access_12-01-01.log for access log at January 1, 2012.

Editing httpd.conf configuration

Edit your httpd.conf in this path “Xampp/apache/conf/httpd.conf” for Xampp and “AppServ/ApacheX.X/conf/httpd.conf” for AppServ. Find the line contains config like this:

1	CustomLog "logs/access.log" common

Comment this line by adding # in the beginning of line. Then, add new line bellow old config and fill with this config:

1	CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs.exe logs/access_%y-%m-%d.log 86400" common

Make sure that rotatelogs.exe exist in bin directory. To tell apache should rotate log daily base, we should add numeric value 86400 that means interval in seconds after new file is generated. Number 86400 came from (24 hours * 60 Minutes * 60 Seconds) that means apache log should rotate daily. Don’t forget to savehttpd.conf and restart your apache. After the server up, see at directory path “xampp/apache/logs” for Xampp and “AppServ/ApacheX.X/logs” for AppServ, there is access log with new format name: “access_year-month-date.log”. For more explanation, see Apache HTTP Server Log Files.

Combined Log Format

Another commonly used format string is called the Combined Log Format. It can be used as follows.

LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-agent}i\"" combined
CustomLog log/access_log combined

This format is exactly the same as the Common Log Format, with the addition of two more fields. Each of the additional fields uses the percent-directive %{header}i, where header can be any HTTP request header. The access log under this format will look like:

127.0.0.1 - frank [10/Oct/2000:13:55:36 -0700] "GET /apache_pb.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 2326 "http://www.example.com/start.html" "Mozilla/4.08 [en] (Win98; I ;Nav)"

The additional fields are:

"http://www.example.com/start.html" (\"%{Referer}i\")

The "Referer" (sic) HTTP request header. This gives the site that the client reports having been referred from. (This should be the page that links to or includes/apache_pb.gif).

"Mozilla/4.08 [en] (Win98; I ;Nav)" (\"%{User-agent}i\")

The User-Agent HTTP request header. This is the identifying information that the client browser reports about itself.