Challenger logs unusual events in two different places: the Event Log tab in the configuration interface, and a debug log file. It is a good idea to keep an eye on at least one of these regularly, since important events are logged there.

Challenger also logs all accesses to a virtual server in an access log.

Event Log
The Event Log will display a list of events that have occurred such as when the server was started, which virtual servers were enabled and when the administrator logged in. The list also displays errors such as run-time errors or failure to compile a module. Error messages will if possible include a Pike backtrace, making it easy to pin-point the cause.

Each event is preceded by an icon that indicates whether this is an information, warning or error message.

Icons

Information icon Warning icon Error icon

Debug Log
The debug log contains the same information as the Event Log. Its default location is logs/debug/servername.1 but this can be changed by the log-dir option to the start script or the Global Variables/Log directory prefix variable. The debug log is rotated at each server restart, the five most recent debug logs being kept.

The debug log can be sent to syslog by changing the Global Variables/Logging method variable.

Access Log
Challenger logs each access to a virtual server in an access log. Its default location is logs/<virtual server name>/Log and can be changed by the log-dir option to the start script, the Global Variables/Log directory prefix variable or the Server Variables/Logging... variable.

It is important to keep the access log under surveillance, since it will show exactly how the server is used. This will tell which pages are popular as any pages that cause errors. Attempts to break into the server will also often show up in the access log. Since the access log contains so much data a log analyzing tool, like Roxen LogView, is the preferred way of studying it.

Because of the access log size, you will probably have to rotate and compress them once in a while. Challenger cannot do this by itself, you have to do it manually or with an external script. Just move the log file and Challenger will, within a minute, start using a new log file.

The log function can be configured in the Server Variables/Logging... variables. The default is the Common Logfile format, which is understood by all log file analyzers.

How things are logged can also be changed by enabling a log module. The User logger module gives access logs for each user's home pages. Other log modules are the Client logger and Logging disabler.