Wicked Cool Shell Scripts

#86 Exploring the Apache error_log

Just as Script #84, Exploring the Apache access_log, reveals the interesting and useful statistical information found in the regular access log of an Apache or Apache-compatible web server, this script extracts the critical information from the error_log.

For those web servers that don't automatically split their log file into separate access_log and error_log components, you can sometimes split a central log file into access and error components by filtering based on the return code (field 9) of each entry in the log:

awk '{if (substr($9,0,1) <= "3") { print $0 } }' apache.log > access_log
awk '{if (substr($9,0,1)  > "3") { print $0 } }' apache.log > error_log

A return code that begins with a 4 or a 5 ...