Server Logs

[keith smith]

Thanks for all the pointers!

This is a simple setup.  One store on one server and an informational site and a small store on the other.  The third is for backups and fail over.

While I have been messing with Linux for over 10 years I feel I'm not quite there when it comes to "managing" a server.  These are actually managed servers however I have to do stuff like add or remove users... once in a while configure a virtual host....  Lately I've been asked questions about why the server is slower than other times and if there is anything going on out of the ordinary.

I've looked through the HTTPD logs and I think it was /var/log/messages and something else that I do not now recall.  Beyond that I'm not sure what else I would do.

I do appreciate everyones help!!


------------------------
Keith Smith



--- On Fri, 3/27/09, Lisa Kachold <lisakachold at obnosis.com> wrote:

From: Lisa Kachold <lisakachold at obnosis.com>
Subject: RE: Server Logs
To: plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
Date: Friday, March 27, 2009, 1:42 PM




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You might just benefit from installing awstats, which will give you a nice log platform.

Awstats can be a security risk, but in order to really see what's happening, awstats is great.

Your logs can be heavily configured in many ways, and it's going to depend on which LAMP platform you built and what you need to watch.  

A log retention policy is an important item for Systems Administration, and especially for web systems.  
If your cluster is load balanced, you want to see which server is taking what load.
You can export your log location and mount that location for the awstats to read.

While you can laboriously setup extended headers, either of two classic types of extended or standard apache logs, awstats is still going to give you at a glance error 404, page not found, 302 redirects, referrers, spiders and more in eye glazy clear style.  

Obnosis | (503)754-4452




PLUG Linux Security Labs 2nd Saturday Each Month at Noon - 3PM


Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:28:27 -0700
From: charles.jones at ciscolearning.org
To: plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
Subject: Re: Server Logs






  


keith smith wrote:

  
    
      
        

Hi,

        

I am a programmer so my server admin skills are on the basic end.  I
have been tasked with managing several LAMP servers running CentOS.

        

I'm looking for a simple reference that will tell me what logs to look
at, how often to look at them, and what to be looking for.

        

Thanks in advance for your help!
      
    
  

You can automate this somewhat by installing and configuring "logwatch"
(yum install logwatch).  It will run periodically and email you any
interesting things that happened with the logs.



-Charles

Windows Live™ SkyDrive: Get 25 GB of free online storage. Check it out. 

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