access_log

The first part of the record identifies the person who made the request or, more specifically, the address of the computer of the person who made the request. Depending upon how your virtual server is configured, this information can also be stored as a standard IP address consisting only of numbers.

1. Usually next two symbols are dashes. In some special cases (i.e. - using authorization) you can found a user name in the place of second one. The first informational space (first dash) is not used by HOSTEX, therefore it always will be a dash.

Next, you will see when the request was made. It's listed in [day/month/year:hour:minute:second GMT variance] format.

Following the time information there is the account of the actual request, in quotes, that was issued by a Web browser to your Web server. The request is made up of three parts: the request method, the path to the file requested, and the HTTP version of the request.

Request method. There are only two methods to request a file: GET and POST. In this case, the Web browser tried to "GET" a file located in /index.html.

Path. All paths in your access_log start at the document root, so the full path of the file being requested is actually ~/www/htdocs/index.html.

HTTP version. The final part of the request is the HTTP version that was used to request the file. Most of the time, the version HTTP/1.0 is used.

The next piece of information is the Web server's response to the request. The Web server's response code varies according to the request. There are three possible response codes: 200, 303, and 404. The response codes are explained below:

200. The request was successful, and the requested file was delivered to the Web browser.

304. The request was successful, but the requested file did not have to be delivered to the Web browser because the visitor's Web browser already had a current version of the requested file in its cache.

404. The request was unsuccessful because the Web server could not find the requested file. This "404" corresponds to the "404 File Not Found" error returned by your Web server.

Following the Web server's response code comes the size of the response, given in bytes. In this example, 420 bytes of information were sent, meaning that the index.html file must be 420 bytes in size. If no information is actually sent in response to the request, as is the case with a cached "304" response, a dash (-) appears in place of a number. Even if the server's response code is "404," which means that the file was not found, there can be a size to the response, which is size of the error document that was returned to the Web browser.

2. Last two positions provides information on how this page was accessed. The first on show the referrer or it will be dash if it was a direct hit. The second one provides information on user's browser.

error_log

In most cases, the IP address of the visitor who received the error is given, and the file that was requested is usually listed as well.

Do not forget to delete these logs permanently, because they add up to the total disk space your site is using. In some cases, undeleted log files can significantly increase the payment for the total disk space used by you site.