Default log file locations

[Peter Bittner <pe...@gmx.net>]

Hi there!

In my day job I'm helping to get applications from traditional
environments running in cloud environments. Cloud native applications
are just "normal" applications, but there are a few properties that
they should satisfy (apart from resiliency and scalability).

For logging this boils down to what is prescribed by the 12-factor
app: The log output should be a continuous stream, i.e. simply log to
the terminal.

Now, as of today, at least on Debian based container images, the
behavior of Apache is to write to /var/log/apache2/access.log and
/var/log/apache2/error.log by default. We try to compensate this by
making those files symbolic links to /dev/stdout and /dev/stderr.
We're doing this also, because there seem to be cases when a log entry
is written _before_ it is configured via the Apache configuration
file.

From my perspective it would be advantageous to have Apache write to
the terminal by default (i.e. no hardcoded log file locations) and
allow to override this behavior via the Apache configuration file.

Is there any reason why the default behavior is not that way yet?

Peter

Re: Default log file locations

[Peter Bittner <pe...@gmx.net>]

I'm sorry!

Am Do., 27. Juni 2019 um 21:55 Uhr schrieb Mark Phippard <ma...@gmail.com>:
>
> On Jun 27, 2019, at 1:10 PM, Peter Bittner <pe...@gmx.net> wrote:
>
> Hi there!
>
> In my day job I'm helping to get applications from traditional
> environments running in cloud environments. Cloud native applications
> are just "normal" applications, but there are a few properties that
> they should satisfy (apart from resiliency and scalability).
>
> For logging this boils down to what is prescribed by the 12-factor
> app: The log output should be a continuous stream, i.e. simply log to
> the terminal.
>
> Now, as of today, at least on Debian based container images, the
> behavior of Apache is to write to /var/log/apache2/access.log and
> /var/log/apache2/error.log by default. We try to compensate this by
> making those files symbolic links to /dev/stdout and /dev/stderr.
> We're doing this also, because there seem to be cases when a log entry
> is written _before_ it is configured via the Apache configuration
> file.
>
> From my perspective it would be advantageous to have Apache write to
> the terminal by default (i.e. no hardcoded log file locations) and
> allow to override this behavior via the Apache configuration file.
>
> Is there any reason why the default behavior is not that way yet?
>
>
> I assume you meant to send this to the dev@ list for the httpd project?
>
> http://httpd.apache.org/lists.html
>
> Mark

Re: Default log file locations

[Mark Phippard <ma...@gmail.com>]

> On Jun 27, 2019, at 1:10 PM, Peter Bittner <pe...@gmx.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi there!
> 
> In my day job I'm helping to get applications from traditional
> environments running in cloud environments. Cloud native applications
> are just "normal" applications, but there are a few properties that
> they should satisfy (apart from resiliency and scalability).
> 
> For logging this boils down to what is prescribed by the 12-factor
> app: The log output should be a continuous stream, i.e. simply log to
> the terminal.
> 
> Now, as of today, at least on Debian based container images, the
> behavior of Apache is to write to /var/log/apache2/access.log and
> /var/log/apache2/error.log by default. We try to compensate this by
> making those files symbolic links to /dev/stdout and /dev/stderr.
> We're doing this also, because there seem to be cases when a log entry
> is written _before_ it is configured via the Apache configuration
> file.
> 
> From my perspective it would be advantageous to have Apache write to
> the terminal by default (i.e. no hardcoded log file locations) and
> allow to override this behavior via the Apache configuration file.
> 
> Is there any reason why the default behavior is not that way yet?

I assume you meant to send this to the dev@ list for the httpd project?

http://httpd.apache.org/lists.html

Mark