Cloud Platform

Streaming log entries in real time

Important

Avoid using log streaming for persistent log transmission to internal or third-party log retention services. If you require this feature, contact your Acquia account manager to purchase Acquia’s Log forwarding service.

Besides downloading log files from the Cloud Platform interface or accessing logs using command-line tools, you can also stream logs in real time using the Cloud Platform interface on the Applications > [Environment] > Logs page. The Logs page stream shows log entries from all the logs of an environment at once. In contrast, each of the log files you can download shows a single log from an infrastructure (aside from the Drupal watchdog log and the MySQL slow query log).

Node.js applications and log streaming

Enclose your Node.js application in error-handling code that captures error information through console.log() or console.error() for log and error message display in log streaming.

There are several methods you can use to modify which log entries are streamed:

  • Click Stream to select which logs are the source of log entries to be streamed. By default, the PHP error and Apache error logs are enabled.

  • Filter the log stream using JavaScript regular expressions. Type a regular expression and the log stream is filtered accordingly.
  • If you click a log entry or scroll down the log stream, new entries are not added to the display. Click Show new messages to return to the top of the log stream and show the most recent log entries.
  • Click Pause to pause the log stream, and Restart to restart the log stream. When you restart the log stream after pausing it, the Logs page displays current log entries and doesn’t display all the entries that occurred while it was paused.
  • To clear all the log entries, click Clear.

  • To download a log file, select Logs > Download. For more information, see Downloading active log files.

Important

If the rate of messages goes beyond 500 messages per second during log streaming for an environment, you might experience delays in your stream. This lag might be caused due to latency in the network. However, the system does not drop any messages. 

Color coding for log entries

Log entries are displayed with different colored bars at the left margin:

Log sourceBar color
Apache errorRed
Apache requestYellow
Balancer requestGreen
Drupal requestYellow
MySQL slow queryRed
Node.js errorRed
PHP errorRed
Varnish® requestGreen

Streaming logs from the command line

In addition to streaming logs on the Logs page, you can use the Logstream Ruby gem, which provides a client-side API library and command-line interface. Learn more about how to install and use Logstream.

Note

The Cloud Platform log streaming Chrome extension, although available as a Chrome extension, is not supported.