What is the Apache error log location on Linux

Last updated on August 9, 2020 by Dan Nanni

Error log and access log files are a useful piece of information for system admins, for example to troubleshoot their web server, protect it from various malicious activities, or just to run various analytics for HTTP server monitoring. Depending on your web server setup, its error/access logs may be found in different places on your system.

This post may help you find Apache error log location on Linux.

Apache Error Log Location on Debian, Ubuntu or Linux Mint

Default Error Log

On Debian-based Linux, the system-wide default location of Apache error log is /var/log/apache2/error.log. The default location can be customized by editing Apache configuration file.

Custom Error Log

To find a custom error log location, open /etc/apache2/apache2.conf with a text editor, and look for a line that starts with ErrorLog. This line specifies a custom location of Apache error log file. For example, the unmodified Apache configuration file has the following line:

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

In this case, the location is configured using APACHE_LOG_DIR environment variable, which is defined in /etc/apache2/envvars.

export APACHE_LOG_DIR=/var/log/apache2$SUFFIX

In reality, ErrorLog may point to any arbitrary path on your Linux system.

Custom Error Log with VirtualHost

If VirtualHost is used in Apache web server, ErrorLog directive can be specified within VirtualHost container, in which case the system-wide error log location described above will be ignored.

With VirtualHost enabled, each VirtualHost can define its own custom error log location. To find out the error log location of a particular VirtualHost, you can open /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/<your-site>.conf, and look for ErrorLog directive, which will show a site-specific error log file.

Apache Error Log Location on CentOS, Fedora or RHEL

Default Error Log

On Red Hat based Linux, a system-wide Apache error log file is by default placed in /var/log/httpd/error_log. This default location can be customized by editing Apache configuration file.

Custom Error Log

To find out the custom location of Apache error log, open /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf with a text editor, and look for ServerRoot, which shows the top of the Apache server directory tree, under which log files and configurations are located. For example:

ServerRoot "/etc/httpd"

Now look for a line that starts with ErrorLog, which indicates where Apache web server is writing its error logs. Note that the specified location is relative to the ServerRoot value. For example:

ErrorLog "log/error_log"

Combine the above two directives to obtain the full path of an error log, which is by default /etc/httpd/logs/error_log. This is a symlink to /var/log/httpd/error_log with freshly installed Apache.

In reality, ErrorLog may point to any arbitrary location on your Linux system.

Custom Error Log with VirtualHost

If you enabled VirtualHost, you can find the error log location of individual VirtualHosts by checking /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf (or any file where VirtualHost is defined). Look for ErrorLog inside individual VirtualHost sections. For example, in the following VirtualHost section, an error log is found in /var/www/xmodulo.com/logs/error_log.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    DocumentRoot /var/www/xmodulo.com/public_html
    ServerName www.xmodulo.com
    ServerAlias xmodulo.com
    ErrorLog /var/www/xmodulo.com/logs/error_log
    CustomLog /var/www/xmodulo.com/logs/access_log
<VirtualHost>

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