cPanel Logs: Access, Apache, Email, Error, FTP, MySQL, WHM

Hosting with cPanel uses a graphical interface to make web hosting super easy, but there are command line tools you could familiarize yourself with for advanced troubleshooting. cPanel logs most activity that happens on a server to log files so you can go back and review log entries for problems, instead of having to be on the server at the time of them happening.

This guide will cover the locations of the cPanel log files for things such as access logs, Apache web server logs, email logs, error logs, ftp logs, MySQL logs, and WHM logs.

If you’d like to have a poster of the 2013 cPanel logs location reference, you can request them from cPanel directly.

You can also view a digitial copy of this poster directly online at go.cPanel.net/logposter.

If you are on a shared server, you may have to request a specific log file from Live Support.

cPanel logs

Access logs and user actions	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/access_log
Account transfers and misc. logs	/var/cpanel/logs
Auditing log (account creations, deletions, etc)	/var/cpanel/accounting.log
Backup logs	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/cpbackup
Brute force protection (cphulkd) log	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/cphulkd.log
Cpanel dnsadmin dns clustering daemon	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/dnsadmin_log
Cpanel taskqueue processing daemon	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/queueprocd.log
DBmapping	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/setupdbmap_log
EasyApache build logs	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/easy/apache/
Error log	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/error_log
Installation log	/var/log/cpanel
License updates and errors	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/license_log
Locale database modifications	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/build_locale_database_log
Login errors (CPSRVD)	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/login_log
Horde	/var/cpanel/horde/log/
RoundCube	/var/cpanel/roundcube/log/
SquirrelMail	/var/cpanel/squirrelmail/
Panic log	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/panic_log
Per account bandwidth history (Cached)	/var/cpanel/bandwidth.cache/{USERNAME}
Per account bandwidth history (Human Readable)	/var/cpanel/bandwidth/{USERNAME}
Service status logs	/var/log/chkservd.log
Tailwatch driver tailwatchd log	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/tailwatch_log
Update analysis reporting	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/updated_analysis/{TIMESTAMP}.log
Update (UPCP) log	/var/cpanel/updatelogs/updated.{TIMESTAMP}.log
WebDisk (CPDAVD)	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/cpdavd_error_log
Website statistics log	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/stats_log

cPanel access log

Access logs and user actions	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/access_log

cPanel apache log

Apache restarts done through cPanel and WHM	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/safeapcherestart_log
Domain access logs	/usr/local/apache/domlogs/{DOMAIN}
Processing of log splitting	/usr/local/cpanel/logs/splitlogs_log
suPHP audit log	/usr/local/apache/logs/suphp_log
Web server and CGI application error log	/usr/local/apache/logs/error_log

cPanel email log

Delivery and receipt log	/var/log/exim_mainlog
Incoming mail queue	/var/spool/exim/input/
Log of messages rejected based on ACLS or other policies	/var/log/exim_rejectlog
Unexpected/Fatal error log	/var/log/exim_paniclog
IMAP, POP login attempts, transactions, fatal errors and spam scoring	/var/log/maillog	/var/log/messages
Mailman	/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailmain/logs

FTP log

FTP Files log	/usr/local/apache/domlogs/ftpxferlog
FTP Directory log	/usr/local/apache/domlogs

MySQL log

MySQL error log	/var/lib/mysql/{SERVER_NAME}.err
MySQL slow query log (if enabled in my.cnf)	/var/log/slowqueries

NGINX

Note: Ownership must be ‘nginx:nginx’ for cache path.

NGINX cache	/var/nginx/cache
NGINX access log	/var/log/nginx/access.log
NGINX error log	/var/log/nginx/error.log
cPanel Cache Manager	Some hosting plans also include the cPanel Cache Manager

You should now know where to begin looking if you suspect problems on your cPanel server.

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