Linux Log Files Location?

Paul Wellner Bou · Apr 20, 2016

Hey everyone,
I am a new Linux user. I would like to know where are the log files located under CentOS Linux server? How do I open or view log files on Linux operating systems?

RDO Servers · Apr 20, 2016

Hey Paul

Most Linux log files are in /var/log/

Enter directory
# cd /var/log/

List files in folder, to get filename of log
# ls

View log file contents
# cat /var/log/filename

Joshua Farrell · Apr 21, 2016

Paul Wellner Bou said:
Hey everyone,
I am a new Linux user. I would like to know where are the log files located under CentOS Linux server? How do I open or view log files on Linux operating systems?

You can use the following commands to see the log files:

less
more
cat
grep
tail
zcat
zgrep
zmore

for example, any one of the following command:

# less /var/log/messages
# more -f /var/log/messages
# cat /var/log/messages
# tail -f /var/log/messages
# grep -i error /var/log/messages

Here's paths to files names

/var/log/messages : General message and system related stuff
/var/log/auth.log : Authenication logs
/var/log/kern.log : Kernel logs
/var/log/cron.log : Crond logs (cron job)
/var/log/maillog : Mail server logs
/var/log/qmail/ : Qmail log directory (more files inside this directory)
/var/log/httpd/ : Apache access and error logs directory
/var/log/lighttpd/ : Lighttpd access and error logs directory
/var/log/boot.log : System boot log
/var/log/mysqld.log : MySQL database server log file
/var/log/secure or /var/log/auth.log : Authentication log
/var/log/utmp or /var/log/wtmp : Login records file
/var/log/yum.log : Yum command log file.

Hope that helps!

Linux Log Files Location?

Paul Wellner Bou

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Joshua Farrell

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