This is especially useful when you’re remotely connected to a server and don’t have a GUI. It is also important to know how to view logs in the command line. Viewing and monitoring logs from the command line To view currently logged in users, use the who command. Login records logĬontains login info used by other utilities to find out who’s logged in. You can view it with the lastlog command. Last logins logĬontains info about last logins. You can view it with the faillog command. Login failures logĬontains info about login failures. Some were made to be parsed by applications. Not all log files are designed to be read by humans. The next display (display 1) would log to Xorg.1.log, and so on. Display numbers start at zero, so your first display (display 0) will log to Xorg.0.log. The X11 server creates a seperate log file for each of your displays. error.log records all errors thrown by the server. The access.log file records all requests made to the server to access files. Location: /var/log/apache2/ (subdirectory)Īpache creates several log files in the /var/log/apache2/ subdirectory.

Some applications also create logs in /var/log. If you can’t find anything in the other logs, it’s probably here. Kernel logĬontains more information about your system. Provides debugging information from the Ubuntu system and applications. For example, display server, SSH sessions, printing services, bluetooth, and more. Daemon Logĭaemons are programs that run in the background, usually without user interaction. Keeps track of authorization systems, such as password prompts, the sudo command and remote logins. These logs may contain information about authorizations, system daemons and system messages. System logs deal with exactly that - the Ubuntu system - as opposed to extra applications added by the user. Below is a list of common log file locations. When trying to find a log about something, you should start by identifying the most relevant file. There are many different log files that all serve different purposes.

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