Logs

AppJail has its own way to list, read and remove logs created by itself. The idea is to have a centralized form to manage static log files created by some AppJail subcommands or by AppJail itself.

Having just files scattered around the filesystem doesn't make sense, since you probably want to know which part of AppJail generates them, when, and you also want to keep them for a long time until you don't really need them. AppJail solves this with a very simple approach:

• type: Refers to a group of entities with the same meaning in a context.
• entity: Refers to an individual in a group.
• subtype: Refers to a group of logs with the same meaning in a context.
• log: Log filename.

types:

• commands: Logs created by commands.
• jails: Logs created by jails.
• nat: Logs created by commands that perform NAT or are related to this operation.

entity

The entities can be a network, a jail or something similar. They are dynamic.

subtype:

• jails/{ENTITY}/build: Logs created when building the FreeBSD source tree using the jail subcommand of appjail-update(1).
• jails/{ENTITY}/console: Logs created by the exec.consolelog parameter of jail(8) and configured by appjail-start(8) when not specified by the user in a Template.
• jails/{ENTITY}/container: Logs generated by the background process in the appjail-oci(1) exec command.
• jails/{ENTITY}/healthcheckers: Logs created by Healthcheckers.
• {jails|nat}/{ENTITY}/{startup-start|startup-stop}: Logs created by appjail-startup(1).
• releases/{ENTITY}/build: Same as jails/ENTITY/build but for releases.
• commands/{ENTITY}/output: If ENABLE_LOGGING_OUTPUT is enabled, an AppJail session is logged to this file.
• {jails|releases}/${ENTITY}/etcupdate: An appjail-etcupdate(1) session is logged to this file.

log:

Log filename can be changed as desired. See appjail.conf(5) for details.

Logs can be listed simply using appjail-logs(1) with no arguments or executing appjail-logs(1) list.

# appjail logs
TYPE   ENTITY     SUBTYPE        LOG
jails  debian     console        2023-02-03.log
jails  debian     console        2023-02-04.log
jails  debian     startup-start  2023-02-03.log
jails  debian     startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  debian     startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  debian     startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  jalias     console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jalias     console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jalias     startup-start  2023-02-03.log
jails  jalias     startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jalias     startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  jalias     startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  jalias46   console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jalias46   console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jalias46   startup-start  2023-02-03.log
jails  jalias46   startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jalias46   startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  jalias46   startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  jalias6    console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jalias6    console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jalias6    startup-start  2023-02-03.log
jails  jalias6    startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jalias6    startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  jalias6    startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  jbridge    console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jbridge    console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jbridge    startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jbridge    startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  jdb        console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jdb        console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jdb        startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jdb        startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  jdb        startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  jdev       console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jdev       console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jdev       startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jdev       startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  jdhcp      console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jdhcp      startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jdhcp      startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  jdisable   console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jdisable   console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jdisable   startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jdisable   startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  jdisable   startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  jds        console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jds        startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jinherit   console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jinherit   console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jinherit   startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jinherit   startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  jinherit   startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  jmultinet  console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jmultinet  startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  jnat       console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jnat       startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jnat       startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  jng        console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jng        startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jnonat     console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jpriv      console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jpub       console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jslaac     console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jslaac     console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jslaac     startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jslaac     startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  jtest      console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jtest      console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jtest      startup-start  2023-02-03.log
jails  jtest      startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  jvirtnet   console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jvnet      console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jvnet      startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jweb       console        2023-02-03.log
jails  jweb       console        2023-02-04.log
jails  jweb       startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  jweb       startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  jweb       startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  myjail     console        2023-02-03.log
jails  myjail     console        2023-02-04.log
jails  myjail     startup-start  2023-02-03.log
jails  myjail     startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  myjail     startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  myjail     startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  nginx      console        2023-02-04.log
jails  otherjail  console        2023-02-03.log
jails  otherjail  console        2023-02-04.log
jails  otherjail  startup-start  2023-02-03.log
jails  otherjail  startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  otherjail  startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
jails  otherjail  startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
jails  php        console        2023-02-04.log
jails  php        console        2023-02-04.log
jails  php        startup-start  2023-02-04.log
jails  php        startup-stop   2023-02-04.log
nat    db         startup-start  2023-02-03.log
nat    db         startup-stop   2023-02-03.log
nat    web        startup-start  2023-02-03.log
nat    web        startup-stop   2023-02-03.log

appjail logs read uses the PAGER environment variable to display the log to read. Set -R to display ANSI colors correctly.

# env PAGER="less -R" appjail logs read jails/php/startup-start/2023-02-04.log
[00:00:05] [ debug ] [php] Locking php ...
[00:00:05] [ info  ] [php] Starting php...
[00:00:10] [ debug ] [php] Using `/usr/local/appjail/jails/php/conf/template.conf` as the template.
[00:00:12] [ debug ] [php] Checking for invalid parameters...
[00:00:14] [ debug ] [php] Writing `/usr/local/appjail/jails/php/conf/template.conf` content to `/usr/local/appjail/cache/tmp/.appjail/appjail.wkX25nfm` ...
[00:00:14] [ debug ] [php] Checking for parameters marked as required...
...

To remove a log use appjail logs remove:

appjail logs remove jails/jpriv/console/2023-02-04.log

Or to remove a bunch of logs in a single command:

appjail logs remove jails/jpriv

Using the -g flag we can use shell glob patterns.

appjail logs remove -g 'jails/otherjail/startup-start/2023-02-0[34].log'

Warning

When using ZFS as the backend file system appjail-logs(1) remove will recursively remove all datasets including all references, such as clones. Be careful.

appjail-logs(1) tail can be used to display the last part of a file.

appjail logs tail jails/jalias6/startup-stop/2023-02-04.log -f

Info

Another useful log is created by the RC script which defaults to /var/log/appjail.log.