View web server error logs

Owned by Liam Tanner
Feb 02, 2024
2 min read

Some errors are not captured in Totara logs or debugging messages. For example, authentication errors may occur before users log in to Totara, or there may be a file size or processing limit on the web server that has been exceeded. In these cases the web server logs contain information on the error that has occurred. These logs can be viewed to help see what has happened.

Totara supports Apache and Internet Information Server web servers. How you access these logs is dependent on the web server being used.

Apache Web Server

  1. The name and the location of the log is set by the ErrorLog command, and the default apache access log file locations are:

    • RHEL / Red Hat / CentOS / Fedora Linux Apache: /var/log/httpd/error_log

    • Debian / Ubuntu Linux Apache: /var/log/apache2/error.log

    • FreeBSD Apache: /var/log/httpd-error.log

    The web server user will need to have write access to the error log directory.

  2. There may be a graphical application that manages the server. For example, in the Bitnami stack there is the Manager app, in which you can select Manage Servers > Open Error Log.

Internet Information Server

  1. Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) manager application.

  2. A list of sites will display in the IIS manager panel - make a note of the site ID of your Totara site.

  3. Click on your Totara site and double-click the Logging icon.

  4. Select Directory and navigate to the folder that ends with site ID of your Totara site. For example, W3SVC2 for site ID 2.