cPanel log file locations and Basic troubleshooting, most activity that happens on a server to log files, so that you can go back and review log entries for problems, instead of having to be on the server at the time of them happening.
Path : /var/log/dmesg
Use the command ” dmesg ” in the root shell to display all the kernel ring buffer (last 64 K) stored in the memory. Just use ” dmesg > boot.messages ” to store the logs in the separate file, and if you want to clear the dmesg just type ” dmesg -c “.
Path : /var/log/messages
Use “ tail -f /var/log/message ” to list what is going on with your system and with your dns. This logs helps the admin to find our any form of tcp/udp and other form of attacks.
Path : /var/log/btmp
Stores all the bad login and logout attempts either failure or success. Just use the lastb command to list all the log in a clear format with date/time etc to trace and block the attack source. This kind of attacks on ssh are normally done using a script with Brute force password crackers.
Path : /var/log/wtmp
Similar to the bad login/logout this log store the good/authorized system login and logout which can be listed using ” last “ command.
Path : /var/log/lastlog
Database times of previous user logins. The lastlog file is a database which contains info on the last login of each user. Use the ” lastlog ” command to retrieve the data from the logs.
Path : /var/log/secure
Logs all daemons which requires PAM Authentication.
cPanel/WHM Initial Installation Errors
Path : /var/log/cpanel*install*
Logs use to record the missing dependency or any error which its encouter during the cpanel installation process including the hardware driver failures/mis-matches.
Path : /usr/local/cpanel/logs/license_log
License and its updated information’s are stored here, if you are encountering with any license issue just execute the command /usr/local/cpanel/cpkeyclt to update the license from the cpanel.
Path : /var/cpanel/accounting.log
Contains a list of accounting functions performed through WHM, including account removal and creation. So the administrator can make of this logs to check who deleted the account and from which ip etc.
Path : /var/log/chkservd.log
Separate logs for the cpanel’s chkservd daemon which logs the service failure and notifications.
Path : /usr/local/cpanel/logs/stats_log
The stats daemon (cpanellogd) logs the output from all stats generators (Awstats, Webalizer, Analog) here.
Path : /usr/local/cpanel/logs/access_log
All the login attempts and logins will be logged in this logs which helps the administrator to check who logged in to the panel on which time/ip address etc.
Path : /var/cpanel/bandwidth
Files contain a list of the bandwidth history for each account. Each named after their respective user.
Path : /usr/local/cpanel/logs/tailwatchd_log
Logs for daemon configured under tailwatchd ie. cPBandwd, Eximstats, Antirelayd.
Ftp General login and Failure
Path : /var/log/messages
FTP Data Transactions log
Path : /var/log/xferlog
Is a symbolic link in most cases to /usr/local/apache/domlogs/ftpxferlog, which contains a history of the transactions made by FTP users.
FTP account Raw logs.
Path : /usr/local/apache/domlogs/ftp.domainname-ftp_log
Store all the ftp login/transfers ftp commands, client connection status etc.
Pure-ftp log
Path : /var/log/pureftpd.log
It will be disabled by default and only works if you enable it in the /etc/pure-ftpd.conf .
Pro-ftp log
Path : /var/log/pro-ftpd.log
It will be disabled by default and only works if you enable it in the /etc/pro-ftpd.conf
MySQL General Information and Errors
Path : /var/lib/mysql/$(hostname).err
This path could vary, but is generally located in /var/lib/mysql. Could also be located at /var/log/mysqld.log.
Apache Access Logs:
Path : /usr/local/apache/logs/access_log
Complete web server access log records all requests processed by the server.
General Error and Auditing Logs
Path : /usr/local/apache/logs/error_log
All exceptions caught by httpd along with standard error output from CGI applications are logged here, including apache crash etc.
Apache SuExec Logs
Path : /usr/local/apache/logs/suexec_log
Auditing information reported by suexec each time a CGI application is executed. Useful for debugging internal server errors, with no relevant information being reported to the Apache error_log, check here for potential suexec policy violations.
Domain Access & error logs
Path : /usr/local/apache/domlogs/domain.com
General access and error log file for each domain configured with cPanel.
Mail Receive and Delivery
Path : /var/log/exim_mainlog or /var/log/exim/mainlog(FreeBSD)
Receives an entry every time a message is received or delivered.
ACLs/Policies based RejectLog
Path : /var/log/exim_rejectlog
An entry is written to this log every time a message is rejected based on either ACLs or other policies eg: aliases configured to :fail
Panic/Fatal Errors :
Path : /var/log/exim_paniclog
Logs any entries exim doesn’t know how to handle. It’s generally a really bad thing when log entries are being written here, and they should be properly investigated
IMAP/POP logs
Path : /var/log/maillog & /var/log/messages
The IMAP, POP, and SpamAssassin services all log here. This includes all general logging information (login attempts, transactions, spam scoring), along with fatal errors.