Lighttpd - Access log

Lighttpd have an access log, but it's disabled by default.

Activate access log
To actite it you have to modify the configuration file:
"/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf"

Where you have to activate the mod_accesslog module:

server.modules = (

...
"mod_accesslog"

...

)

And define the access log path, exemple: 

accesslog.filename             = "/var/log/lighttpd/access.log"

Reading the log
The log will be written in the defined file. Every week, the file will be saved as "access.log.2.gz" and a new "access.log" file will be created.

Log Format
Log lines are defined like that by default:
address of remote-host adress of the server user timestamp "request" status code bytes sent "Referer adress" "User-Agent"

1?.6?.1?.1? www.htcpcp.net - 23/Jan/2013:07:13:56 +0000 "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 1371 "http://www.error418.fr/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"

When I decided to check of my server log, I didn't thought to find something interesting in it. But reading this log was much more exciting than I thought, making me discover a universe populated by Agents Robots, Nerds and Pirates who will the topic of future posts.

Debug the teapot - Enabling the 418 return code

I have found a simple a way to correct the lack of 418 return code.

There are php commands to control the return code in the header.

But to use it I first had to install PHP for my lighttpd server with this command:
"sudo apt-get install lighttpd php5-cgi"

After that I had to enable it in the server with these 2 commands

"sudo lighty-enable-mod fastcgi" "sudo lighty-enable-mod fastcgi-php"

After that I have renamed my index.html for index.php and then I have added this PHP code to my page.
"<?php

header("I'm a teapot!", true, 418);
?>"

Here is the result in the Firefox debuging console