NGINX - Customizing Logging to Fit Your Needs

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NGINX - Customizing Logging to Fit Your Needs

Before we can start building our world-changing website or application on LEMP, we have to lay the foundation - the stack. In this hands-on lab, we will walk through customizing NGINX logging on Ubuntu Linux. We will explore configuring custom `access_log` and `error_log` locations, custom log formats and more. Completing this lab will provide a good understanding of how to customize logging in NGINX on Ubuntu Linux.

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Lab Info

Level

Intermediate

Last updated

Aug 08, 2025

Duration

1h 0m

Challenge

Configure the Logging Location for the Virtual Host

Become the root user:

sudo su -

Edit the bigstatecollege.edu.conf file:

cd /etc/nginx/sites-available

vi bigstatecollege.edu.conf

After the server_name line, add the following:

        access_log /var/log/nginx/bigstatecollege.edu_access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/bigstatecollege.edu_error.log;

Save and exit.

Challenge

Test the New Logging Location for the Virtual Host
Validate / reload NGINX:
```
nginx -t
```
```
systemctl reload nginx
```
Test the new configuration:
```
curl --insecure https://www.bigstatecollege.edu
```
```
ls -al /var/log/nginx/
```
We should see the new logs. Take a look at the contents of the new access log:
```
cat /var/log/nginx/bigstatecollege.edu_access.log
```
Access the virtual host several more times. Access a file that doesn't exist, then take a look at the contents of the log again.
Challenge

Configure the Error Logging Level for the Virtual Host
We're going to set the error logs to the debug level, the most verbose:
```
vi bigstatecollege.edu.conf
```
On the error_log line, add debug:
```
error_log /var/log/nginx/bigstatecollege.edu_error.log debug;
```
Save and exit.
Challenge

Test the Error Logging Level for the Virtual Host
Validate / reload NGINX:
```
nginx -t
```
```
systemctl reload nginx
```
Test the new configuration:
```
curl --insecure https://www.bigstatecollege.edu
```
```
curl --insecure https://www.bigstatecollege.edu/foo.txt
```
Let's see what we generated in the new error log:
```
cat /var/log/nginx/bigstatecollege.edu_error.log
```
We'll see there's more detail in there.
Challenge

Configure the Access Log to Use the 'custom' Format
Edit the virtual host configuration file:
```
vi bigstatecollege.edu.conf
```
On the access_log line, add the following:
```
access_log /var/log/nginx/bigstatecollege.edu_access.log custom;
```
Save and exit.

We will need to define the custom logging level in the nginx.conf file:
```
vi ../nginx.conf
```

Challenge

Configure the 'custom' Access Log Format in nginx.conf

After the error_log line, add the following:

log_format  custom '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] '
                             '"$request" $status $body_bytes_sent '
                             '"$http_referer" "$http_user_agent" '
                             '"$http_x_forwarded_for" $request_id '
                             '$geoip_country_name $geoip_country_code '
                             '$geoip_region_name $geoip_city ';

Save and exit.

Challenge

Test the 'custom' Access Log Format
Validate and reload NGINX:
```
nginx -t
```
```
systemctl reload nginx
```
Let's test the new configuration:
```
curl --insecure https://www.bigstatecollege.edu
```
```
curl --insecure https://www.bigstatecollege.edu/foo.txt
```
Now, let's see what we generated in the new access log:
```
cat /var/log/nginx/bigstatecollege.edu_access.log
```
You'll see the format of the access log has changed.

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