https://github.com/mwat56/apachelogger
An Apache style file logger for the Go web-server
https://github.com/mwat56/apachelogger
apache go golang golang-package logfile logging-library middleware web-site
Last synced: 5 months ago
JSON representation
An Apache style file logger for the Go web-server
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/mwat56/apachelogger
- Owner: mwat56
- License: gpl-3.0
- Created: 2019-05-02T14:49:12.000Z (about 7 years ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2025-05-04T13:12:27.000Z (about 1 year ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-05-04T14:22:28.107Z (about 1 year ago)
- Topics: apache, go, golang, golang-package, logfile, logging-library, middleware, web-site
- Language: Go
- Homepage:
- Size: 127 KB
- Stars: 1
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
- Code of conduct: CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# ApacheLogger
[](https://golang.org/)
[](https://godoc.org/github.com/mwat56/apachelogger/)
[](https://goreportcard.com/report/github.com/mwat56/apachelogger)
[](https://github.com/mwat56/apachelogger/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue)
[](https://github.com/mwat56/apachelogger/)
[](https://github.com/mwat56/apachelogger/tags)
[](https://github.com/mwat56/apachelogger/blob/main/LICENSE)
[](https://github.com/mwat56/apachelogger/blob/main/cmd/demo.go)
- [ApacheLogger](#apachelogger)
- [Purpose](#purpose)
- [Installation](#installation)
- [Usage](#usage)
- [Special Features](#special-features)
- [Libraries](#libraries)
- [Licence](#licence)
----
## Purpose
`ApacheLogger` is a `Go` middleware package that adds Apache-style logging to `Go` web servers. Key features include:
- Logs HTTP requests in Apache-compatible format,
- provides privacy protection by anonymizing IP addresses,
- supports both access and error logging,
- offers manual logging functions (`Log()` and `Err()`),
- catches and recovers from panics, logging them to the error log,
- simple integration via a `Wrap()` function that wraps your HTTP handler.
The package is designed to be lightweight with no external dependencies, making it easy to add professional logging to any Go web application while maintaining privacy compliance.
This package can be used to add a logfile facility to your `Go` web-server.
The format of the generated logfile entries resembles that of the popular _Apache_ web-server (see below).
## Installation
You can use `Go` to install this package for you:
go get -u github.com/mwat56/apachelogger
## Usage
To include the automatic logging facility you just call the `Wrap()` function as shown here:
func main() {
// the filenames should be taken from the commandline
// or a config file:
accessLog := "/dev/stdout"
errorLog := "/dev/stderr"
pageHandler := http.NewServeMux()
pageHandler.HandleFunc("/", myHandler)
server := http.Server{
Addr: "127.0.0.1:8080",
Handler: apachelogger.Wrap(pageHandler, accessLog, errorLog),
// ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
}
apachelogger.SetErrLog(&server)
if err := server.ListenAndServe(); nil != err {
log.Fatalf("%s: %v", os.Args[0], err)
}
} // main()
So, you just have to find a way the get/set the name of the desired logfile names – e.g. via a commandline option, or an environment variable, or a config file, whatever suits you best.
Then you set up your `server` like shown above using the call to `apachelogger.Wrap()` to wrap your original pagehandler with the logging facility.
The creation pattern for a logfile entry is this:
apacheFormatPattern = `%s - %s [%s] "%s %s %s" %d %d "%s" "%s"`
All the placeholders to be seen in the pattern will be filled in with the appropriate values at runtime which are (in order of appearance):
* remote IP,
* remote user,
* date/time of request,
* request method,
* requested URL,
* request protocol,
* server status,
* served size,
* remote referrer,
* remote user agent.
It means you can now use all the logfile analysers etc. for `Apache` logs for your own logfiles as well.
## Special Features
Since _**privacy**_ became a serious concern for a growing number of people (including law makers) – the IP address is definitely to be considered as _personal data_ – this logging facility _anonymises_ the requesting users by setting the host-part of the respective remote address to zero (`0`).
This option takes care of e.g. European servers who may _not without explicit consent_ of the users store personal data; this includes IP addresses in logfiles and elsewhere (eg. statistical data gathered from logfiles).
For debugging purposes global flag `AnonymiseErrors` (default: `false`) is provided that allows to fully (e.g. not anonymised) log all requests that cause errors (e.g. 4xx and 5xx statuses).
While the logging of web-requests is done automatically you can _manually add entries_ to the logfile by calling
apachelogger.Log(aSender, aMessage string)
The `aSender` argument should give some indication of from where in your program you're calling the function, and `aMessage` is the text you want to write to the logfile. To preserve the format of the log-entry neither `aSender` nor `aMessage` must contain double-quotes (`"`).
The messages are logged as coming from `127.0.0.1` with an user-agent of `mwat56/apachelogger`; this should make it easy to find these messages amongst all the 'normal' ones.
If you want to automatically log your server's errors as well you'd call
apachelogger.SetErrorLog(aServer *http.Server)
during initialisation of your program. This will write the errors thrown by the server to the errorlog passed to the `Wrap()` function.
Additionally you can call
apachelogger.Err(aSender, aMessage string)
from your own code to write a message to the error log.
To avoid that a `panic` crashes your program this module catches and `recover`s such situations.
The error/cause of the `panic` is written to the error logfile for later inspection.
## Libraries
No external libraries were used building `ApacheLogger`.
## Licence
Copyright © 2019, 2025 M.Watermann, 10247 Berlin, Germany
All rights reserved
EMail :
> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
>
> This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
>
> You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see the [GNU General Public License](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) for details.
----
[](http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)