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] [-E] [-F <format>] [-f <for‐
10 matfile>] [-g <request|vxid>] [-h] [-j] [-L <limit>] [-n <dir>] [-P
11 <file>] [-Q <file>] [-q <query>] [-r <filename>] [-R <limit[/dura‐
12 tion]>] [-t <seconds|off>] [-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. This option has no effect without the -w option.
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 -E Show ESI requests, implies client mode.
42 -F <format>
44 Set the output log format string.
45 -f <formatfile>
47 Read output format from a file. Will read a single line from the
48 specified file, and use that line as the format.
49 -g <request|vxid>
51 The grouping of the log records. The default is to group by
52 vxid.
53 -h Print program usage and exit
55 -j Make format-specifier replacements JSON-compatible. When escap‐
57 ing characters, use JSON-style \uXXXX escape sequences instead
58 of C-style \xXX sequences. Empty strings will be replaced with
59 "" instead of "-", and empty integers will be replaced with
60 null. Use -F or -f in combination with -j to write JSON logs.
61 -L <limit>
63 Sets the upper limit of incomplete transactions kept before the
64 oldest transaction is force completed. A warning record is syn‐
65 thesized when this happens. This setting keeps an upper bound on
66 the memory usage of running queries. Defaults to 1000 transac‐
67 tions.
68 -n <dir>
70 Specify the varnishd working directory (also known as instance
71 name) to get logs from. If -n is not specified, the host name is
72 used.
73 -P <file>
75 Write the process' PID to the specified file.
76 -Q <file>
78 Specifies the file containing the VSL query to use. When multi‐
79 ple -Q or -q options are specified, all queries are considered
80 as if the 'or' operator was used to combine them.
81 -q <query>
83 Specifies the VSL query to use. When multiple -q or -Q options
84 are specified, all queries are considered as if the 'or' opera‐
85 tor was used to combine them.
86 -r <filename>
88 Read log in binary file format from this file. The file can be
89 created with varnishlog -w filename. If the filename is -, logs
90 are read from the standard input. and cannot work as a daemon.
91 -R <limit[/duration]>
93 Restrict the output to the specified limit. Transactions exceed‐
94 ing the limit will be suppressed. The limit is specified as the
95 maximum number of transactions (with respect to the chosen
96 grouping method) and an optional time period. If no duration is
97 specified, a default of s is used. The duration field can be
98 formatted as in VCL (e.g. -R 10/2m) or as a simple time period
99 without the prefix (e.g. -R 5/m). When in -g raw grouping mode,
100 this setting can not be used alongside -i, -I, -x or -X, and we
101 advise using -q instead.
102 -t <seconds|off>
104 Timeout before returning error on initial VSM connection. If set
105 the VSM connection is retried every 0.5 seconds for this many
106 seconds. If zero the connection is attempted only once and will
107 fail immediately if unsuccessful. If set to "off", the connec‐
108 tion will not fail, allowing the utility to start and wait inde‐
109 finetely for the Varnish instance to appear. Defaults to 5 sec‐
110 onds.
111 -V Print version information and exit.
113 -w <filename>
115 Redirect output to file. The file will be overwritten unless the
116 -a option was specified. If the application receives a SIGHUP in
117 daemon mode the file will be reopened allowing the old one to be
118 rotated away. This option is required when running in daemon
119 mode. If the filename is -, varnishncsa writes to the standard
120 output and cannot work as a daemon.
121 --optstring
123 Print the optstring parameter to getopt(3) to help writing wrap‐
124 per scripts.
125
127 The default mode of varnishncsa is "client mode". In this mode, the
128 log will be similar to what a web server would produce in the absence
129 of varnish. Client mode can be explicitly selected by using -c.
130 If the -b switch is specified, varnishncsa will operate in "backend
132 mode". In this mode, requests generated by varnish to the backends
133 will be logged. Unless -c is also specified, client requests received
134 by varnish will be ignored.
135 When running varnishncsa in both backend and client mode, it is
137 strongly advised to include the format specifier %{Varnish:side}x to
138 distinguish between backend and client requests.
139 Client requests that results in a pipe (ie. return(pipe) in vcl), will
141 not generate logging in backend mode. This is because varnish is not
142 generating requests, but blindly passes on bytes in both directions.
143 However, a varnishncsa instance running in normal mode can see this
144 case by using the formatter %{Varnish:handling}x, which will be 'pipe'.
145 In backend mode, some of the fields in the format string get different
147 meanings. Most notably, the byte counting formatters (%b, %I, %O) con‐
148 siders varnish to be the client.
149 It is possible to keep two varnishncsa instances running, one in back‐
151 end mode, and one in client mode, logging to different files.
152
154 Specify the log format to use. If no format is specified the default
155 log format is used:
156 %h %l %u %t "%r" %s %b "%{Referer}i" "%{User-agent}i"
158 Escape sequences \n and \t are supported.
160 Supported formatters are:
162 %b In client mode, size of response in bytes, excluding HTTP head‐
164 ers. In backend mode, the number of bytes received from the
165 backend, excluding HTTP headers. In CLF format, i.e. a '-'
166 rather than a 0 when no bytes are sent.
167 %D In client mode, time taken to serve the request, in microsec‐
169 onds. In backend mode, time from the request was sent to the
170 entire body had been received. This is equivalent to %{us}T.
171 %H The request protocol. Defaults to HTTP/1.0 if not known.
173 %h Remote host. Defaults to '-' if not known. In backend mode this
175 is the IP of the backend server.
176 %I In client mode, total bytes received from client. In backend
178 mode, total bytes sent to the backend.
179 %{X}i The contents of request header X. If the header appears multiple
181 times in a single transaction, the last occurrence is used.
182 %l Remote logname. Always '-'.
184 %m Request method. Defaults to '-' if not known.
186 %{X}o The contents of response header X. If the header appears multi‐
188 ple times in a single transaction, the last occurrence is used.
189 %O In client mode, total bytes sent to client. In backend mode,
191 total bytes received from the backend.
192 %q The query string. Defaults to an empty string if not present.
194 %r The first line of the request. Synthesized from other fields, so
196 it may not be the request verbatim. See the NOTES section.
197 %s Status sent to the client. In backend mode, status received
199 from the backend.
200 %t In client mode, time when the request was received, in HTTP
202 date/time format. In backend mode, time when the request was
203 sent.
204 %{X}t In client mode, time when the request was received, in the for‐
206 mat specified by X. In backend mode, time when the request was
207 sent. The time specification format is the same as for strf‐
208 time(3) with these extensions:
209 • %{sec}: number of seconds since the Epoch
211 • %{msec}: number of milliseconds since the Epoch
213 • %{usec}: number of milliseconds since the Epoch
215 • %{msec_frac}: millisecond fraction
217 • %{usec_frac}: microsecond fraction
219 The extensions can not be combined with each other or strf‐
221 time(3) in the same specification. Use multiple %{X}t specifica‐
222 tions instead.
223 %T In client mode, time taken to serve the request, in seconds. In
225 backend mode, time from the request was sent to the entire body
226 had been received. This is equivalent to %{s}T.
227 %{X}T In client mode, time taken to serve the request, in the format
229 specified by X. In backend mode, time from the request was sent
230 to the entire body had been received. The time specification
231 format can be one of the following: s (same as %T), ms or us
232 (same as %D).
233 %U The request URL without the query string. Defaults to '-' if not
235 known.
236 %u Remote user from auth.
238 %{X}x Extended variables. Supported variables are:
240 Varnish:time_firstbyte
242 Time from when the request processing starts until the
243 first byte is sent to the client, in seconds. For back‐
244 end mode: Time from the request was sent to the backend
245 to the entire header had been received.
246 Varnish:hitmiss
248 One of the 'hit' or 'miss' strings, depending on whether
249 the request was a cache hit or miss. Pipe, pass and synth
250 are considered misses.
251 Varnish:handling
253 One of the 'hit', 'miss', 'pass', 'pipe' or 'synth'
254 strings indicating how the request was handled.
255 Varnish:side
257 Backend or client side. One of two values, 'b' or 'c',
258 depending on where the request was made. In pure backend
259 or client mode, this field will be constant.
260 Varnish:vxid
262 The VXID of the varnish transaction.
263 VCL_Log:key
265 The value set by std.log("key:value") in VCL.
266 VSL:tag:record-prefix[field]
268 The value of the VSL entry for the given tag-record pre‐
269 fix-field combination. Tag is mandatory, the other compo‐
270 nents are optional.
271 The record prefix will limit the matches to those records
273 that have this prefix as the first part of the record
274 content followed by a colon.
275 The field will, if present, treat the log record as a
277 white space separated list of fields, and only the nth
278 part of the record will be matched against. Fields start
279 counting at 1 and run up to 255.
280 Defaults to '-' when the tag is not seen, the record pre‐
282 fix does not match or the field is out of bounds. If a
283 tag appears multiple times in a single transaction, the
284 first occurrence is used.
285
287 • SIGHUP
288 Rotate the log file (see -w option) in daemon mode, abort the loop
290 and die gracefully when running in the foreground.
291 • SIGUSR1
293 Flush any outstanding transactions.
295
297 The %r formatter is equivalent to "%m http://%{Host}i%U%q %H". This
298 differs from apache's %r behavior, equivalent to "%m %U%q %H". Fur‐
299 thermore, when using the %r formatter, if the Host header appears mul‐
300 tiple times in a single transaction, the first occurrence is used.
301
303 Log the second field of the Begin record, corresponding to the VXID of
304 the parent transaction:
305 varnishncsa -F "%{VSL:Begin[2]}x"
307 Log the entire Timestamp record associated with the processing length:
309 varnishncsa -F "%{VSL:Timestamp:Process}x"
311 Log in JSON, using the -j flag to ensure that the output is valid JSON
313 for all inputs:
314 varnishncsa -j -F '{"size": %b, "time": "%t", "ua": "%{User-Agent}i"}'
316
318 varnishd(1) varnishlog(1) varnishstat(1) vsl(7)
319
321 The varnishncsa utility was developed by Poul-Henning Kamp in coopera‐
322 tion with Verdens Gang AS and Varnish Software AS. This manual page was
323 initially written by Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@des.no>, and later up‐
324 dated by Martin Blix Grydeland and Pål Hermunn Johansen.
325
327 This document is licensed under the same licence as Varnish itself. See
328 LICENCE for details.
329 • Copyright (c) 2006 Verdens Gang AS
331 • Copyright (c) 2006-2016 Varnish Software AS
333 VARNISHNCSA(1)