nginx log format tweaks

formats-nginx | formats-ingress | formats-parsers

stock vanilla

here’s a few offered standardized nginx log formats for access logs (error log do not have specific format)

log_format combined '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] '
        '"$request" $status $body_bytes_sent '
        '"$http_referer" "$http_user_agent"';

log_format main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
         '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
         '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    log_format mainssl '$ssl_protocol $ssl_cipher '
                       '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                       '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                       '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for" "$gzip_ratio"';

log_format notes '$remote_addr "$request" $status';

    log_format compression '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] '
                               '"$request" $status $body_bytes_sent '
                               '"$http_referer" "$http_user_agent" "$gzip_ratio"';

log_format sslparams '$ssl_protocol $ssl_cipher '
             '$remote_addr "$http_user_agent"';

tweak 1 - gzip

the ideal shit we would want is main + sslparams + compression

log_format mainssl '$ssl_protocol $ssl_cipher '
           '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
           '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
           '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for" "$gzip_ratio"';

tweak 2 - json

that’s even better for pushing logs to a modern log server with fluent-bit’s json parser – example taken from various sources (see resources below) – requires nginx v1.11.8+

see nginx

resources

log formats

https://nginx.com/blog/sampling-requests-with-nginx-conditional-logging/

https://serverfault.com/questions/916653/what-is-the-default-log-format-on-nginx/

flb regex

https://tanmay-bhat.hashnode.dev/parsing-apache-and-nginx-logs-in-fluent-bit

https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/concepts/data-pipeline/input

https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/pipeline/inputs/

json

https://vikborges.com/articles/how-to-make-nginx-access-logs-more-readable-with-json/

FW https://medium.com/bolt-labs/using-json-for-nginx-log-format-793743064fc4

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25049667/how-to-generate-a-json-log-from-nginx