My Apache log file has nothing but "combinedio" on each line

Question

I tried to view my Apache2 log with the following command:

sudo tail -100 /usr/local/apache2/logs/thewebsitename.log

and all it returned were 100 lines saying "combinedio" on each line. How can I view the log?

Answer 1

It sounds like your Apache configuration is faulty. You will need to fix your Apache configuration so that it starts logging correctly.

"combinedio" is a logging format powered by mod_logio. See on ServerFault: What is the difference between combined and combinedio Log Formats in Apache? Your Apache config has a line like:

CustomLog combinedio

There is some problem that is causing Apache not to know that is a nickname of a log format and simply log "combinedio" as a literal for every hit. The problem may be one of:

• mod_logio is not installed or enabled
• the combinedio log format is not defined in your configuration

You can either figure out how to fix that module, define that log format, or you can switch to a different log format.

On Ubuntu servers you would enable mod_logio using:

sudo a2enmod mod_logio

You could define the log format by adding a line before your custom log directive:

LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-agent}i\" %I %O" combinedio

Or you could change your CustomLog statement to a log format that may already exist like:

CustomLog combined 

When you change your Apache configuration, you need to restart your server or reload the configuration using a command like:

sudo service apache2 reload

If you are on a managed server or shared hosting, your hosting provider will have to make these changes for you.