Retrieve Runtime Logs

Runtime Logs provides an aggregated, near real-time view into recent application logs generated by WordPress and Node.js applications on VIP Cloud. These logs provide insights into the current health of an environment and can be helpful for debugging issues.

For WordPress applications, Runtimes Logs reports PHP errors including fatals, warnings, and notices (depending on the error_reporting level defined for an application) as well as any logs that are output using the error_log() function.

For Node.js applications, Runtime Logs retrieves output sent to stdout or stderr, which is most commonly handled by the console class.

Runtime Logs can also be reviewed in the Health panel of the VIP Dashboard.

Example output of the Runtime Logs VIP-CLI command for a WordPress environment:

$ vip @mytestsite.production logs
2022-01-05T21:37:11.159495287Z PHP message: Warning: Division by zero in /var/www/wp-content/client-mu-plugins/errors.php on line 4 [mytestsite.go-vip.net/?warning=1] [wp-content/mu-plugins/z-client-mu-plugins.php:119 include_once('wp-content/client-mu-plugins/errors.php'), wp-settings.php:340 include_once('wp-content/mu-plugins/z-client-mu-plugins.php'), wp-config.php:53 require_once('wp-settings.php'), wp-load.php:50 require_once('wp-config.php'), wp-blog-header.php:13 require_once('wp-load.php'), index.php:17 require('wp-blog-header.php')]
2022-01-05T21:37:15.683692218Z PHP message: PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function invalid_function() in /var/www/wp-content/client-mu-plugins/errors.php:8
2022-01-05T21:37:15.683720541Z Stack trace:
2022-01-05T21:37:15.683723928Z #0 /var/www/wp-content/mu-plugins/z-client-mu-plugins.php(119): include_once()
2022-01-05T21:37:15.683727274Z #1 /var/www/wp-settings.php(340): include_once('/var/www/wp-con...')
2022-01-05T21:37:15.683730831Z #2 /var/www/wp-config.php(53): require_once('/var/www/wp-set...')
2022-01-05T21:37:15.683733847Z #3 /var/www/wp-load.php(50): require_once('/var/www/wp-con...')
2022-01-05T21:37:15.683736782Z #4 /var/www/wp-blog-header.php(13): require_once('/var/www/wp-loa...')
2022-01-05T21:37:15.683739788Z #5 /var/www/index.php(17): require('/var/www/wp-blo...')
2022-01-05T21:37:15.683743695Z #6 {main}
2022-01-05T21:37:15.683746701Z   thrown in /var/www/wp-content/client-mu-plugins/errors.php on line 8

Considerations

• Logs are aggregated from across multiple containers, then grouped by container and ordered by timestamp. This may cause multiline log entries to be returned in an unexpected order.
• Runtime Logs fetches raw logs from containers. An environment’s containers—and its logs—are replaced with new containers when a deployment is made. Only the logs on a current set of containers are retrievable.
• Logs are not guaranteed to persist for any length of time and will be cleared as needed. Applications that generate high volumes of logs will be cleared more often.

Command options

Run vip logs --help in the terminal for a full help menu of the options available and usage examples.

By default, logs are output to the terminal, but the command output can also be saved to a file using tee or >.

Format of the vip logs command with available options:

vip logs @<app>.<env> [--type=app|batch] [--limit=<lines>] [--format=text|json|csv]

--type

Accepted values: app or batch
Default value: app

Indicates the type of logs to be retrieved.  app  retrieves logs from web containers (i.e. log entries generated by HTTP requests) and batch retrieves logs from batch containers (i.e. log entries generated by cron tasks or WP-CLI commands).

--limit

Accepted values: numerical value of lines to retrieve
Default value: 500, maximum of 5000

Indicates how many log lines to fetch in a single command.

--format

Accepted values: text, json, or csv
Default value: text

Indicates the format that the returned logs will be rendered in the terminal.

--follow

Accepted values: none

When running vip logs --follow , new log entries are automatically retrieved without needing to re-run the vip logs command. This option is useful for tools that ingest logs for long term storage and analysis (e.g. Splunk or ELK). Because logs do not persist on containers, there is no guarantee that all log entries will be received. Review the Considerations above for more details.

Troubleshooting

No logs found

If a new deployment was made recently, wait a few seconds for logs to regenerate on the containers.

Error: Resource not found

A value used in the vip logs command to target an application or the environment may be incorrect, or the user running the command does not have the required minimum of Org member role or App write role to retrieve logs for that application. 

Error: Too many requests, please try again in [] seconds.

Log requests are rate limited per-user and per-application. Wait the recommended amount of time provided in the error message before attempting a new request.