Two separate access.log files with different format

Question

Is it possible to have two separate log files, each saving logs with different format?

For example, will something like this work?

events{}
# See blow link for Creating NGINX Plus and NGINX Configuration Files 
# https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/basic-functionality/managing-configuration-files/
http {

    include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access1.log;

    log_format  lokari  '"$time_local" "$remote_addr" "$status" "$bytes_sent" "$request_time" "$request_method" "$request_uri" "$server_protocol"';

    # The identifier Backend is internal to nginx, and used to name this specific upstream
    upstream backend {
    # BACKEND_HOST is the internal DNS name used by the Backend Service inside the Kubernetes cluster 
    # or in the services list of the docker-compose. 
    server ${BACKEND_HOST}:${BACKEND_PORT};
    }

    server {
        listen ${NODE_PORT};
        root /usr/share/nginx/html;
        index index.html;

        access_log /var/log/nginx/access2.log lokari;

        error_log  /var/log/nginx/error.log debug;

        location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
        }

        location /api/ {
        resolver 127.0.0.11; 
        #nginx will not crash if host is not found    
        # The following statement will proxy traffic to the upstream
        proxy_pass http://backend;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        }
    }

}

So, I want to have two access logs, the access1.log with the default format and the access2.log with a custom format.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 27 '22 at 10:12

Nginx will inherit access log settings from the previous configuration level only if they won't be redefined at the current level. Adding

access_log /var/log/nginx/access2.log lokari;

line to the server configuration level will made nginx to not inherit the previous

access_log /var/log/nginx/access1.log;

settings and the only way to get two access logs for this server block is to define them both:

server {
    ...
    access_log /var/log/nginx/access1.log;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/access2.log lokari;
    ...

Two separate access.log files with different format

1 Answers1