Hosting with cPanel uses a graphical interface to make web hosting super easy, but there are command line tools you could familiarize yourself with for advanced troubleshooting. cPanel logs most activity that happens on a server to log files so you can go back and review log entries for problems, instead of having to be on the server at the time of them happening.
This guide will cover the locations of the cPanel log files for things such as access logs, Apache web server logs, email logs, error logs, ftp logs, MySQL logs, and WHM logs.
If you’d like to have a poster of the 2013 cPanel logs location reference, you can request them from cPanel directly.
You can also view a digitial copy of this poster directly online at go.cPanel.net/logposter.
If you are on a shared server, you may have to request a specific log file from Live Support.
cPanel logs
| Access logs and user actions |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/access_log |
| Account transfers and misc. logs |
/var/cpanel/logs |
| Auditing log (account creations, deletions, etc) |
/var/cpanel/accounting.log |
| Backup logs |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/cpbackup |
| Brute force protection (cphulkd) log |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/cphulkd.log |
| Cpanel dnsadmin dns clustering daemon |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/dnsadmin_log |
| Cpanel taskqueue processing daemon |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/queueprocd.log |
| DBmapping |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/setupdbmap_log |
| EasyApache build logs |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/easy/apache/ |
| Error log |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/error_log |
| Installation log |
/var/log/cpanel |
| License updates and errors |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/license_log |
| Locale database modifications |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/build_locale_database_log |
| Login errors (CPSRVD) |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/login_log |
| Horde |
/var/cpanel/horde/log/ |
| RoundCube |
/var/cpanel/roundcube/log/ |
| SquirrelMail |
/var/cpanel/squirrelmail/ |
| Panic log |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/panic_log |
| Per account bandwidth history (Cached) |
/var/cpanel/bandwidth.cache/{USERNAME} |
| Per account bandwidth history (Human Readable) |
/var/cpanel/bandwidth/{USERNAME} |
| Service status logs |
/var/log/chkservd.log |
| Tailwatch driver tailwatchd log |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/tailwatch_log |
| Update analysis reporting |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/updated_analysis/{TIMESTAMP}.log |
| Update (UPCP) log |
/var/cpanel/updatelogs/updated.{TIMESTAMP}.log |
| WebDisk (CPDAVD) |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/cpdavd_error_log |
| Website statistics log |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/stats_log |
cPanel access log
| Access logs and user actions |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/access_log |
cPanel apache log
| Apache restarts done through cPanel and WHM |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/safeapcherestart_log |
| Domain access logs |
/usr/local/apache/domlogs/{DOMAIN} |
| Processing of log splitting |
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/splitlogs_log |
| suPHP audit log |
/usr/local/apache/logs/suphp_log |
| Web server and CGI application error log |
/usr/local/apache/logs/error_log |
cPanel email log
| Delivery and receipt log |
/var/log/exim_mainlog |
| Incoming mail queue |
/var/spool/exim/input/ |
| Log of messages rejected based on ACLS or other policies |
/var/log/exim_rejectlog |
| Unexpected/Fatal error log |
/var/log/exim_paniclog |
| IMAP, POP login attempts, transactions, fatal errors and spam scoring |
/var/log/maillog |
/var/log/messages |
| Mailman |
/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailmain/logs |
FTP log
| FTP Files log |
/usr/local/apache/domlogs/ftpxferlog |
| FTP Directory log |
/usr/local/apache/domlogs |
MySQL log
| MySQL error log |
/var/lib/mysql/{SERVER_NAME}.err |
| MySQL slow query log (if enabled in my.cnf) |
/var/log/slowqueries |
NGINX
Note: Ownership must be ‘nginx:nginx’ for cache path.
| NGINX cache |
/var/nginx/cache |
| NGINX access log |
/var/log/nginx/access.log |
| NGINX error log |
/var/log/nginx/error.log |
| cPanel Cache Manager |
Some hosting plans also include the cPanel Cache Manager |
You should now know where to begin looking if you suspect problems on your cPanel server.
