Can Apache httpd be made to log errors to console instead of log files under Windows?

Question

I'm doing infrequent development with Apache/PHP on my Windows machine so I've opted to run apache as a console process instead of a service. It would be nice if errors could be logged to the console window instead of a logfile so I can see them immediately. Can this be done somehow? It doesn't seem that apache has such a capability built in and I can't find a mod that would do this either.

Answer 1

Yes it can.

Edit your httpd.conf file to pipe the output of the error log to your console window with this directive:

ErrorLog "|more"

Answer 2

Just wanted to update this question with an answer that may be plaguing a bunch of people.

Scenario:

• Running an apache2 docker container
• Want output of docker run <container_id> to show logs

Without talking too much about docker, the relevant command I ran to run apache and show logs at the same time:

/usr/sbin/apache2 & tail -f /var/log/apache2/*

You can modify this as you need (I am using debian:jessie image). As mentioned in a comment above, you have get tail for windows and I believe the & operator should work in Windows as well (not sure about this).

This command will block your shell and keep sprouting stuff from your logs...

Hope this helps someone

Answer 3

I'm not sure if apache will let you do that, but have you tried using:

tail -f /the/apache/logfile.log ?

That should let you watch the log in realtime (assuming you aren't buffering it or anything)

EDIT: Since this is a windows machine, the same thing can be done using TextPad (just have it to auto-reload the log file on change). It will function the same as tail