The cPanel hosting platform offers a user-friendly graphical interface to simplify web hosting, but it is beneficial to acquaint yourself with command-line tools for advanced troubleshooting purposes. The platform records most server activities in log files, allowing you to review them later instead of having to be present at the time of occurrence.
This article provides information on the locations of cPanel log files, including access logs, Apache web server logs, email logs, error logs, FTP logs, MySQL logs, and WHM logs. If you require a 2013 cPanel logs location reference poster, you can obtain one from cPanel directly or access a digital version at go.cPanel.net/logposter.
In the event that you are on a shared server, you may need 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.
