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24 <div id="page-content">
25 <div id="preamble"><h1>Apache Module mod_log_forensic</h1>
27 <p><span>Available Languages: </span><a href="../en/mod/mod_log_forensic.html" title="English"> en </a> |
28 <a href="../ja/mod/mod_log_forensic.html" hreflang="ja" rel="alternate" title="Japanese"> ja </a> |
29 <a href="../tr/mod/mod_log_forensic.html" hreflang="tr" rel="alternate" title="Türkçe"> tr </a></p>
31 <table class="module"><tr><th><a href="module-dict.html#Description">Description:</a></th><td>Forensic Logging of the requests made to the server</td></tr>
32 <tr><th><a href="module-dict.html#Status">Status:</a></th><td>Extension</td></tr>
33 <tr><th><a href="module-dict.html#ModuleIdentifier">Module Identifier:</a></th><td>log_forensic_module</td></tr>
34 <tr><th><a href="module-dict.html#SourceFile">Source File:</a></th><td>mod_log_forensic.c</td></tr>
35 <tr><th><a href="module-dict.html#Compatibility">Compatibility:</a></th><td><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_unique_id.html">mod_unique_id</a></code> is no longer required since
36 version 2.1</td></tr></table>
39 <p>This module provides for forensic logging of client
40 requests. Logging is done before and after processing a request, so the
41 forensic log contains two log lines for each request.
42 The forensic logger is very strict, which means:</p>
45 <li>The format is fixed. You cannot modify the logging format at
47 <li>If it cannot write its data, the child process
48 exits immediately and may dump core (depending on your
49 <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mpm_common.html#coredumpdirectory">CoreDumpDirectory</a></code>
53 <p>The <code>check_forensic</code> script, which can be found in the
54 distribution's support directory, may be helpful in evaluating the
55 forensic log output.</p>
57 <div id="quickview"><h3 class="directives">Directives</h3>
59 <li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#forensiclog">ForensicLog</a></li>
63 <li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#formats">Forensic Log Format</a></li>
64 <li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#security">Security Considerations</a></li>
65 </ul><h3>See also</h3>
67 <li><a href="../logs.html">Apache Log Files</a></li>
68 <li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_log_config.html">mod_log_config</a></code></li>
69 </ul><ul class="seealso"><li><a href="#comments_section">Comments</a></li></ul></div>
70 <div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
72 <h2><a name="formats" id="formats">Forensic Log Format</a></h2>
73 <p>Each request is logged two times. The first time is <em>before</em> it's
74 processed further (that is, after receiving the headers). The second log
75 entry is written <em>after</em> the request processing at the same time
76 where normal logging occurs.</p>
78 <p>In order to identify each request, a unique request ID is assigned.
79 This forensic ID can be cross logged in the normal transfer log using the
80 <code>%{forensic-id}n</code> format string. If you're using
81 <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_unique_id.html">mod_unique_id</a></code>, its generated ID will be used.</p>
83 <p>The first line logs the forensic ID, the request line and all received
84 headers, separated by pipe characters (<code>|</code>). A sample line
85 looks like the following (all on one line):</p>
87 <div class="example"><p><code>
88 +yQtJf8CoAB4AAFNXBIEAAAAA|GET /manual/de/images/down.gif
89 HTTP/1.1|Host:localhost%3a8080|User-Agent:Mozilla/5.0 (X11;
90 U; Linux i686; en-US; rv%3a1.6) Gecko/20040216
91 Firefox/0.8|Accept:image/png, <var>etc...</var>
94 <p>The plus character at the beginning indicates that this is the first log
95 line of this request. The second line just contains a minus character and
98 <div class="example"><p><code>
99 -yQtJf8CoAB4AAFNXBIEAAAAA
102 <p>The <code>check_forensic</code> script takes as its argument the name
103 of the logfile. It looks for those <code>+</code>/<code>-</code> ID pairs
104 and complains if a request was not completed.</p>
105 </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
106 <div class="section">
107 <h2><a name="security" id="security">Security Considerations</a></h2>
108 <p>See the <a href="../misc/security_tips.html#serverroot">security tips</a>
109 document for details on why your security could be compromised
110 if the directory where logfiles are stored is writable by
111 anyone other than the user that starts the server.</p>
112 <p>The log files may contain sensitive data such as the contents of
113 <code>Authorization:</code> headers (which can contain passwords), so
114 they should not be readable by anyone except the user that starts the
117 <div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
118 <div class="directive-section"><h2><a name="ForensicLog" id="ForensicLog">ForensicLog</a> <a name="forensiclog" id="forensiclog">Directive</a></h2>
119 <table class="directive">
120 <tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Description">Description:</a></th><td>Sets filename of the forensic log</td></tr>
121 <tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Syntax">Syntax:</a></th><td><code>ForensicLog <var>filename</var>|<var>pipe</var></code></td></tr>
122 <tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Context">Context:</a></th><td>server config, virtual host</td></tr>
123 <tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Status">Status:</a></th><td>Extension</td></tr>
124 <tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Module">Module:</a></th><td>mod_log_forensic</td></tr>
126 <p>The <code class="directive">ForensicLog</code> directive is used to
127 log requests to the server for forensic analysis. Each log entry
128 is assigned a unique ID which can be associated with the request
129 using the normal <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_log_config.html#customlog">CustomLog</a></code>
130 directive. <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_log_forensic.html">mod_log_forensic</a></code> creates a token called
131 <code>forensic-id</code>, which can be added to the transfer log
132 using the <code>%{forensic-id}n</code> format string.</p>
134 <p>The argument, which specifies the location to which
135 the logs will be written, can take one of the following two
139 <dt><var>filename</var></dt>
140 <dd>A filename, relative to the <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#serverroot">ServerRoot</a></code>.</dd>
142 <dt><var>pipe</var></dt>
143 <dd>The pipe character "<code>|</code>", followed by the path
144 to a program to receive the log information on its standard
145 input. The program name can be specified relative to the <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#serverroot">ServerRoot</a></code> directive.
147 <div class="warning"><h3>Security:</h3>
148 <p>If a program is used, then it will be run as the user who
149 started <code class="program"><a href="../programs/httpd.html">httpd</a></code>. This will be root if the server was
150 started by root; be sure that the program is secure or switches to a
151 less privileged user.</p>
154 <div class="note"><h3>Note</h3>
155 <p>When entering a file path on non-Unix platforms, care should be taken
156 to make sure that only forward slashes are used even though the platform
157 may allow the use of back slashes. In general it is a good idea to always
158 use forward slashes throughout the configuration files.</p>
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168 </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img src="../images/up.gif" alt="top" /></a></div><div class="section"><h2><a id="comments_section" name="comments_section">Comments</a></h2><div class="warning"><strong>Notice:</strong><br />This is not a Q&A section. Comments placed here should be pointed towards suggestions on improving the documentation or server, and may be removed again by our moderators if they are either implemented or considered invalid/off-topic. Questions on how to manage the Apache HTTP Server should be directed at either our IRC channel, #httpd, on Freenode, or sent to our <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/lists.html">mailing lists</a>.</div>
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