Where do logs go when running ASP.NET Core on IIS 7.5?

Question

I'm posting this and answering it, because this left me stumped for a very long time. I have the following line in my web.config:

<aspNetCore processPath="dotnet" arguments=".\XXX.Server.dll" stdoutLogEnabled="true" stdoutLogFile=".\logs\stdout" forwardWindowsAuthToken="false" /> 

So apparently, this should be logging to logs\stdout, but when I look, there's nothing there. I went on a wild goose chase, searching the whole disk for anything named 'log' (that returned too much) or 'stdout' (that returned nothing), and still couldn't figure it out.

Answer 1

You could probably check the Event Viewer on your machine -> Application to see if there are any errors logged, which could explain why your log files aren't being generated.

However, the most probable reason is that IIS doesn't have a permission to write to that log folder.

1. Right click on the folder -> Security
2. Ensure that IIS_IUSRS user has the following permissions: read and execute, list, write (potentially write is missing by default)

Answer 2

You must make sure the log folder exists! IIS won't make it for you. Such a simple solution to this infuriating problem.