Tag Archives: log

Install Logwatch in Linux CentOS

May 19, 2015 by admin · Leave a comment

Logwatch is a Linux application that parses log files, analyses them and sends periodical reports, based on specific criteria, to one or more email addresses.
In order to install logwatch in linux CentOS you have to issues the following command:

yum install logwatch

Edit the configuration file:

nano /usr/share/logwatch/default.conf/logwatch.conf

Check and edit the following directives in order to suit your needs:

LogDir = /var/log
MailFrom = Logwatch@mydomain.com
Range = yesterday //(or today)
Detail=Medium // (other: Low, Medium, High)
Service=all //(other examples would be httpd, sshd2, ftp)

Run logwatch manually:

logwatch --detail High --mailto myemail@domain.com --service http --range today

The output should be like this:

 ################### Logwatch 7.3.6 (05/19/07) ####################
        Processing Initiated: Tue May 19 14:21:59 2015
        Date Range Processed: today
                              ( 2015-May-19 )
                              Period is day.
      Detail Level of Output: 5
              Type of Output: unformatted
           Logfiles for Host: nix
  ##################################################################

 --------------------- courier mail services Begin ------------------------

 **Unmatched Entries**
   courier-pop3d - 2 Times
      Connection, ip=[::ffff:182.118.53.150] - 1 Time
      Disconnected, ip=[::ffff:182.118.53.150] - 1 Time



 ---------------------- courier mail services End -------------------------


 --------------------- Cron Begin ------------------------

sshd:
    Authentication Failures:
       root (43.255.188.163): 4930 Time(s)
       root (43.255.188.155): 3524 Time(s)
       root (61-218-247-185.hinet-ip.hinet.net): 925 Time(s)
       unknown (61-218-247-185.hinet-ip.hinet.net): 391 Time(s)
       root (61.133.63.14): 137 Time(s)
       root (58.218.205.72): 114 Time(s)
       root (222.186.160.48): 98 Time(s)
       root (218.65.30.61): 90 Time(s)
       root (221.229.166.81): 80 Time(s)
       root (58.218.205.66): 69 Time(s)
       root (58.218.199.195): 68 Time(s)
Posted in BASH, scripts. Tagged with , , .

Show only specific columns in Linux log files

August 25, 2014 by admin · Leave a comment

To troubleshoot specific application errors, a sysadmin needs to check his logs for warning, errors or other useful information.
However, most server logs are quite unreadable or contain too much information. This kind of situation is unacceptable and you need to extract only specific columns from that log.
Let’s say you are checking the Apache error log and you want to extract only a specific column. I’m trying to search the log for the word error, the display the IP’s that are getting that error and count how many times the error occurs per IP.
Here’s how you can do it.

First you need to find out where the Apache log file is. In my case it is /etc/httpd/logs/error_log (Redhat, CenOS). If you use Debian or Ubuntu the location will be /var/log/apache2/error.log.

Now that you know the log location, put the path in the command below:

cat /etc/httpd/logs/error_log | grep error | cut -d" " -f8 | uniq -c | sort

You should see something like this:

[root@nyx ~]# cat /etc/httpd/logs/error_log | grep error | cut -d" " -f8 | uniq -c | sort
      1 109.166.141.29]
      1 111.162.148.116]
      1 118.113.227.137]
      1 166.78.10.25]
      1 187.33.2.88]
      1 207.46.13.77]
      1 66.249.78.221]
      1 66.249.78.3]
      6 61.19.246.190]
      6 95.111.68.120]

So, the command syntax is pretty simple: I concatenate the log file, match the “error” word, then print the 8th column, remove duplicates, count the occurrence per IP and sort the list. Voila!

Now you know which IPs are receiving errors when they are visiting your site. You might want to do some checks and see what the problem is. Maybe those IPs are just running bots that are searching for vulnerabilities and it might be a good idea to block them in your firewall.

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