where can i find varnish log files? /var/log/varnish is empty

Question

I'm trying to read log files of Varnish server in Ubuntu environment.

I actually never used Varnish before.

so...I cd to /var/log/varnish, but the folder is empty.

it tells me that I have to configure my varnish server to save logs...is that true?

score 52 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 30 '11 at 02:17

52

by default varnish will not log anywhere.. you have to run a command to get it to show logs

You can run the command

varnishncsa

For more info on how to use that command to write to a log instead of stdout

http://www.go2linux.org/linux/2011/05/configure-varnish-logs-varnishnsca-logrotate-and-awstats-1014

answered Aug 30 '11 at 02:17

Mike

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The most stupid name for log command that you would never guess. – pronebird Nov 24 '15 at 17:55
I looked all over the internet for this. Not only is it a difficult name, it's also buried deep where no one can find it. – Joe Yahchouchi Oct 17 '16 at 18:50
2

You can also do `service varnishncsa start` – vikramaditya234 Jun 01 '17 at 03:35
ncsa goes back to pre-apache webserver and is the name of the log format https://www.loganalyzer.net/log-analyzer/apache-combined-log.html. I agree though it's a stupid name – Mike Aug 23 '19 at 14:01

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 26 '19 at 06:38

We could use varnishlog too, a better remembered name compared with varnishncsa.

We need run it with root privilege - sudo varnishlog, otherwise somethime it will said VSM: Could not get hold of varnishd, is it running?.

For writing log to file, we could run sudo varnishlog -w <filename>.

-w <filename>
Redirect output to file.
The file will be overwritten unless the -a option was specified.
If the application receives a SIGHUP in daemon mode the file will be reopened allowing the old one to be rotated away.
The file can then be read by varnishlog and other tools with the -r option, unless the -A option was specified. This option is required when running in daemon mode.

For reading the log file, we could run sudo varnishlog -r <filename>.

-r <filename>
Read log in binary file format from this file. The file can be created with varnishlog -w filename.

where can i find varnish log files? /var/log/varnish is empty

2 Answers2