[Solved] mod_accesslog buffers until lighttpd is killed

Added by LiveFreeAndRoam@gmail.com about 7 years ago

I'm using lighttpd/1.4.35 and trying to generate a custom accesslog. Unfortunately, the log message is only emitted when I kill the lighttpd process. How do I get it to emit the log message at the time the HTTP request/response occurs?

The process runs as:

/usr/local/bin/lighttpd -f /conf/lighttpd.conf -m /usr/local/lib

My config file is very simple:

server.modules              = (
                               "mod_accesslog" 
                               )

server.errorlog = "/log/lighttpd_error.log" 
accesslog.filename = "/log/lighttpd_access.log" 

accesslog.format = "%h \"%r\" %>s %b (%O) TE:\"%{Transfer-Encoding}o\" CE:\"%{Content-Encoding}o\" <-- %I AE:\"%{Accept-Encoding}i\" TE:\"%{Transfer-Encoding}i\" CE:\"%{Content-Encoding}i\"" 
server.document-root = "/usr/local/www" 

mimetype.assign = (
  ".html" => "text/html",
  ".txt" => "text/plain",
  ".jpg" => "image/jpeg",
  ".png" => "image/png" 
 )

## SSL Engine
$SERVER["socket"] == ":5443" {
  ssl.engine = "enable" 
  ssl.cipher-list = "TLSv1+HIGH !SSLv2 !RC4 !aNULL !eNULL !3DES @STRENGTH" 
}

I use " tail -f /log/lighttpd_access.log ", I see nothing until I kill the lighttpd process. At which point, I see the expected output:

192.1.1.1 "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 484 (699) TE:"-" CE:"-" <-- 719 AE:"gzip, deflate, br" TE:"-" CE:"-" 
192.2.1.76 "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 484 (699) TE:"-" CE:"-" <-- 441 AE:"gzip, deflate, br" TE:"-" CE:"-" 
192.2.1.76 "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 318 (452) TE:"-" CE:"-" <-- 411 AE:"gzip, deflate, br" TE:"-" CE:"-" 
192.1.1.1 "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 484 (699) TE:"-" CE:"-" <-- 719 AE:"gzip, deflate, br" TE:"-" CE:"-"

Matt.

Replies (2)

RE: mod_accesslog buffers until lighttpd is killed - Added by LiveFreeAndRoam@gmail.com about 7 years ago

I found a workaround, by using syslog instead of a named file.

#accesslog.filename = "/store/log/lighttpd_access.log" 
accesslog.use-syslog = "enable" 
accesslog.syslog-level = 7

Now I can monitor the syslog with " tail -f /var/log/debug.log " and the formatted log appears in real-time.

It would be nicer to have a means to use non-buffered IO to any named file, but this workaround is fine for my purposes.

Matt.

RE: [Solved] mod_accesslog buffers until lighttpd is killed - Added by gstrauss about 7 years ago

Modern versions of lighttpd flush logs once a second.

If you're running lighttpd 1.4.35, you're probably also on an end-of-lifed operating system. Lots of self-inflicted problems.

If you want unbuffered access logs, then use either syslog, as you discovered, or use a piped logger.

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