Server logs

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Note: Work in progress!

Logging in FileZilla Server

FileZilla Server, like the client, includes two means of logging, screen and file log.

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File log

The second logging possibility is logging to file. Filelog is disabled after a fresh installation and must be enabled first.

What is logged

  • Connection ID (in brackets): every new connection will get a unique ID, this aids in tracking one special connection only
  • Time stamp
  • User name of the account using this connection, (not logged in) is shown before the login process is completed.
  • IP of the initiator of the connection
  • The separator >
  • Log text: Commands received, replies sent, status messages and more

Note that additional internal status messages don't follow this scheme.

Setting up file log

Open the server settings and navigate to the 'Logging' tab. Tick the 'Enable logging to file' box and you're done. The logfiles are stored into a 'Logs' subdirectory of FileZilla Servers installation path. This location cannot be changed.

Limiting the log size

Enable 'Limit log file size to' and enter the desired value (in KB) into the field. When the logfile reaches this size, the oldest entries will be deleted.

Daily logfile rotation

You can either log everything into one big file, or let the server create a new logfile every day. Just enable 'Use a different logfile each day', and FileZilla Server will create logs in the format fzs-yyyy-mm-dd.log.
The timestamp in the logfile name follows ISO8601 (four digit year, then month, then day), so the logs will sort correctly. Additionally you can set the number of days for which logfiles are kept. Enable 'Delete old logfiles after' and put the desired value (in days) into the field.

Special case: Using log size limit and rotating logfiles together

There is one effect when using these two features together which may confuse many users because it works differently as expected.
When enabling a logfile size limit with daily rotating logs, the limit does not apply to every file, but to all files together!

Example: You enabled a size limit of 100MB, daily logs and deleting logfiles after 10 days. All 10 logfiles together may not exceed 100MB, so you could have 10 logfiles of 10MB each. But once the quota is exceeded, the oldest logfiles will be deleted until there are less than 100MB of files again.

See also

Logging in FileZilla Client