1VARNISHNCSA(1) VARNISHNCSA(1)
2
6 varnishncsa - Display Varnish logs in Apache / NCSA combined log format
7
9 varnishncsa [-a] [-b] [-c] [-C] [-d] [-D] [-F <format>] [-f <format‐
10 file>] [-g <request|vxid>] [-h] [-L <limit>] [-n <dir>] [-P <file>] [-q
11 <query>] [-r <filename>] [-R <limit[/duration]>] [-t <seconds|off>]
12 [-V] [-w <filename>]
13
15 The varnishncsa utility reads varnishd(1) shared memory logs and
16 presents them in the Apache / NCSA "combined" log format.
17 Each log line produced is based on a single Request type transaction
19 gathered from the shared memory log. The Request transaction is then
20 scanned for the relevant parts in order to output one log line. To fil‐
21 ter the log lines produced, use the query language to select the appli‐
22 cable transactions. Non-request transactions are ignored.
23 The following options are available:
25 -a When writing output to a file, append to it rather than over‐
27 write it.
28 -b Log backend requests. If -c is not specified, then only backend
30 requests will trigger log lines.
31 -c Log client requests. This is the default. If -b is specified,
33 then -c is needed to also log client requests
34 -C Do all regular expression and string matching caseless.
36 -d Process log records at the head of the log and exit.
38 -D Daemonize.
40 -F <format>
42 Set the output log format string.
43 -f <formatfile>
45 Read output format from a file. Will read a single line from the
46 specified file, and use that line as the format.
47 -g <request|vxid>
49 The grouping of the log records. The default is to group by
50 vxid.
51 -h Print program usage and exit
53 -L <limit>
55 Sets the upper limit of incomplete transactions kept before the
56 oldest transaction is force completed. A warning record is syn‐
57 thesized when this happens. This setting keeps an upper bound on
58 the memory usage of running queries. Defaults to 1000 transac‐
59 tions.
60 -n <dir>
62 Specify the varnishd working directory (also known as instance
63 name) to get logs from. If -n is not specified, the host name is
64 used.
65 -P <file>
67 Write the process' PID to the specified file.
68 -q <query>
70 Specifies the VSL query to use.
71 -r <filename>
73 Read log in binary file format from this file. The file can be
74 created with varnishlog -w filename.
75 -R <limit[/duration]>
77 Restrict the output to the specified limit. Transactions exceed‐
78 ing the limit will be suppressed. The limit is specified as the
79 maximum number of transactions (with respect to the chosen
80 grouping method) and an optional time period. If no duration is
81 specified, a default of s is used. The duration field can be
82 formatted as in VCL (e.g. -R 10/2m) or as a simple time period
83 without the prefix (e.g. -R 5/m). When in -g raw grouping mode,
84 this setting can not be used alongside -i, -I, -x or -X, and we
85 advise using -q instead.
86 -t <seconds|off>
88 Timeout before returning error on initial VSM connection. If set
89 the VSM connection is retried every 0.5 seconds for this many
90 seconds. If zero the connection is attempted only once and will
91 fail immediately if unsuccessful. If set to "off", the connec‐
92 tion will not fail, allowing the utility to start and wait inde‐
93 finetely for the Varnish instance to appear. Defaults to 5 sec‐
94 onds.
95 -V Print version information and exit.
97 -w <filename>
99 Redirect output to file. The file will be overwritten unless the
100 -a option was specified. If the application receives a SIGHUP in
101 daemon mode the file will be reopened allowing the old one to be
102 rotated away. This option is required when running in daemon
103 mode.
104 --optstring
106 Print the optstring parameter to getopt(3) to help writing wrap‐
107 per scripts.
108
110 The default mode of varnishncsa is "client mode". In this mode, the
111 log will be similar to what a web server would produce in the absence
112 of varnish. Client mode can be explicitly selected by using -c.
113 If the -b switch is specified, varnishncsa will operate in "backend
115 mode". In this mode, requests generated by varnish to the backends
116 will be logged. Unless -c is also specified, client requests received
117 by varnish will be ignored.
118 When running varnishncsa in both backend and client mode, it is
120 strongly advised to include the format specifier %{Varnish:side}x to
121 distinguish between backend and client requests.
122 Client requests that results in a pipe (ie. return(pipe) in vcl), will
124 not generate logging in backend mode. This is because varnish is not
125 generating requests, but blindly passes on bytes in both directions.
126 However, a varnishncsa instance running in normal mode can see this
127 case by using the formatter %{Varnish:handling}x, which will be 'pipe'.
128 In backend mode, some of the fields in the format string get different
130 meanings. Most notably, the byte counting formatters (%b, %I, %O) con‐
131 siders varnish to be the client.
132 It is possible to keep two varnishncsa instances running, one in back‐
134 end mode, and one in client mode, logging to different files.
135
137 Specify the log format to use. If no format is specified the default
138 log format is used:
139 %h %l %u %t "%r" %s %b "%{Referer}i" "%{User-agent}i"
141 Escape sequences \n and \t are supported.
143 Supported formatters are:
145 %b In client mode, size of response in bytes, excluding HTTP head‐
147 ers. In backend mode, the number of bytes received from the
148 backend, excluding HTTP headers. In CLF format, i.e. a '-'
149 rather than a 0 when no bytes are sent.
150 %D In client mode, time taken to serve the request, in microsec‐
152 onds. In backend mode, time from the request was sent to the
153 entire body had been received.
154 %H The request protocol. Defaults to HTTP/1.0 if not known.
156 %h Remote host. Defaults to '-' if not known. In backend mode this
158 is the IP of the backend server.
159 %I In client mode, total bytes received from client. In backend
161 mode, total bytes sent to the backend.
162 %{X}i The contents of request header X. If the header appears multiple
164 times in a single transaction, the last occurrence is used.
165 %l Remote logname. Always '-'.
167 %m Request method. Defaults to '-' if not known.
169 %{X}o The contents of response header X. If the header appears multi‐
171 ple times in a single transaction, the last occurrence is used.
172 %O In client mode, total bytes sent to client. In backend mode,
174 total bytes received from the backend.
175 %q The query string. Defaults to an empty string if not present.
177 %r The first line of the request. Synthesized from other fields, so
179 it may not be the request verbatim. See the NOTES section.
180 %s Status sent to the client. In backend mode, status received
182 from the backend.
183 %t In client mode, time when the request was received, in HTTP
185 date/time format. In backend mode, time when the request was
186 sent.
187 %{X}t In client mode, time when the request was received, in the for‐
189 mat specified by X. In backend mode, time when the request was
190 sent. The time specification format is the same as for strf‐
191 time(3).
192 %T In client mode, time taken to serve the request, in seconds. In
194 backend mode, time from the request was sent to the entire body
195 had been received.
196 %U The request URL without the query string. Defaults to '-' if not
198 known.
199 %u Remote user from auth.
201 %{X}x Extended variables. Supported variables are:
203 Varnish:time_firstbyte
205 Time from when the request processing starts until the
206 first byte is sent to the client, in seconds. For back‐
207 end mode: Time from the request was sent to the backend
208 to the entire header had been received.
209 Varnish:hitmiss
211 One of the 'hit' or 'miss' strings, depending on whether
212 the request was a cache hit or miss. Pipe, pass and synth
213 are considered misses.
214 Varnish:handling
216 One of the 'hit', 'miss', 'pass', 'pipe' or 'synth'
217 strings indicating how the request was handled.
218 Varnish:side
220 Backend or client side. One of two values, 'b' or 'c',
221 depending on where the request was made. In pure backend
222 or client mode, this field will be constant.
223 Varnish:vxid
225 The VXID of the varnish transaction.
226 VCL_Log:key
228 The value set by std.log("key:value") in VCL.
229 VSL:tag:record-prefix[field]
231 The value of the VSL entry for the given tag-record pre‐
232 fix-field combination. Tag is mandatory, the other compo‐
233 nents are optional.
234 The record prefix will limit the matches to those records
236 that have this prefix as the first part of the record
237 content followed by a colon.
238 The field will, if present, treat the log record as a
240 white space separated list of fields, and only the nth
241 part of the record will be matched against. Fields start
242 counting at 1 and run up to 255.
243 Defaults to '-' when the tag is not seen, the record pre‐
245 fix does not match or the field is out of bounds. If a
246 tag appears multiple times in a single transaction, the
247 first occurrence is used.
248
250 SIGHUP Rotate the log file (see -w option).
251 SIGUSR1
253 Flush any outstanding transactions.
254
256 The %r formatter is equivalent to "%m http://%{Host}i%U%q %H". This
257 differs from apache's %r behavior, equivalent to "%m %U%q %H". Fur‐
258 thermore, when using the %r formatter, if the Host header appears mul‐
259 tiple times in a single transaction, the first occurrence is used.
260
262 Log the second field of the Begin record, corresponding to the VXID of
263 the parent transaction:
264 varnishncsa -F "%{VSL:Begin[2]}x"
266 Log the entire Timestamp record associated with the processing length:
268 varnishncsa -F "%{VSL:Timestamp:Process}x"
270
272 varnishd(1) varnishlog(1) varnishstat(1) vsl(7)
273
275 The varnishncsa utility was developed by Poul-Henning Kamp in coopera‐
276 tion with Verdens Gang AS and Varnish Software AS. This manual page was
277 initially written by Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@des.no>, and later
278 updated by Martin Blix Grydeland and Pål Hermunn Johansen.
279
281 This document is licensed under the same licence as Varnish itself. See
282 LICENCE for details.
283 · Copyright (c) 2006 Verdens Gang AS
285 · Copyright (c) 2006-2016 Varnish Software AS
287 VARNISHNCSA(1)