How can I check Drupal log files?

Question

How can I check Drupal log files?

I\'m using Ubuntu 10.10 + Apache2 + PHP 5.33 + MySQL and Drupal 7.

Answer 1

To view entries in Drupal's own internal log system (the watchdog database table), go to http://example.com/admin/reports/dblog. These can include Drupal-specific errors as well as general PHP or MySQL errors that have been thrown.

Use the watchdog() function to add an entry to this log from your own custom module.

When Drupal bootstraps it uses the PHP function set_error_handler() to set its own error handler for PHP errors. Therefore, whenever a PHP error occurs within Drupal it will be logged through the watchdog() call at admin/reports/dblog. If you look for PHP fatal errors, for example, in /var/log/apache/error.log and don't see them, this is why. Other errors, e.g. Apache errors, should still be logged in /var/log, or wherever you have it configured to log to.