VPS & Dedicated Hosting: Log Location | Bluehost Support
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VPS & Dedicated Hosting: Log Location

Overview

There are two main locations where logs are kept on Dedicated and VPS servers: the /usr/local/cpanel/logs directory and the /var/log/ directory. Here is a list of the logs common to each directory, as well as some which can be found in other locations on the server.



/usr/local/cpanel/logs

  • access_log: cPanel access log for both cPanel and WHM
  • cpbackup directory: logs of recent system backups
  • cphulkd.log: Firewall (cPHulk) blocks
  • error_log: cPanel error log
  • license_log: cPanel license log
  • login_log: cPanel user failed login log
  • stats_log: cPanel web stats log

/var/log/

  • messages: Contains global system messages like mail, cron, daemon, kern, auth, etc.
  • bandwidth: cPanel total bandwidth logs for the entire server
  • btmp: failed login attempts
  • chkservd.log: chkservd service log
  • clamav: clamav log directory
  • cron: any scheduled tasks, for both root and cPanel users
  • cpupdate.log: cPanel update log
  • exim_mainlog: Exim email transaction log
  • exim_paniclog: Exim error log
  • exim_rejectlog: Exim rejected email log
  • maillog: Transaction and login log for all mail services
  • pgsql: PostgreSQL log file
  • secure: authentication logs for both successful or failed logins
  • yum.log: updates for system packages

Miscellaneous

  • /usr/local/apache/logs/error_log - Apache error log e.g. some 500 errors.
  • /var/cpanel/accounting.log - Account creation, deletion, etc. 
  • /var/cpanel/logs/mysql_upgrade.log - logs of MySQL upgrades
  • /var/cpanel/updatelogs/ directory - cPanel/WHM updates
  • /var/lib/mysql/HOSTNAME.err - MySQL error log

cPanel keeps the domain weblogs in the /usr/local/cpanel/domlogs directory for each domain name that is hosted on the server. This includes FTP transfer logs for each account.

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You may also refer to our Knowledge Base articles to help answer common questions and guide you through various setup, configuration, and troubleshooting steps.