Raw Access Logs are unprocessed, line-by-line records of every request made to your website, generated directly by the Apache web server. They’re useful for debugging traffic issues, investigating suspicious activity, or getting data in a format you can feed into your own log analysis tools. This is different from AWStats or other visual traffic reports in cPanel, which summarize this same data — raw logs give you the full, unfiltered detail.
How to download your Raw Access Logs
- Log in to your cPanel account.
- Navigate to Metrics → Raw Access.
- Click Download next to the domain you want logs for. The file will download as a compressed
.gzarchive. - Extract the
.gzfile using any standard archive tool (WinRAR, 7-Zip, orgunzipon Linux/Mac) to view the plain-text log.
Note: Raw logs can be large files for high-traffic sites. If the download is slow or the file doesn’t open easily in a text editor, use a tool built for large files (such as less via SSH, or a dedicated log viewer) rather than a standard text editor.
Archiving your logs
By default, raw logs may be periodically removed to save disk space. If you want to retain a history of logs:
- Go to Metrics → Raw Access.
- Enable Archive Logs (and optionally Remove the previous month’s archived logs if you don’t want them to accumulate).
- Save your changes. Archived logs will then be stored and available for download in future.
Retrieving the Error Log
The Error Log is kept separately from the Access Logs and records server-side errors (such as failed script executions or missing files) rather than visitor requests.
- Log in to cPanel.
- Navigate to Metrics → Errors.
- The most recent error log entries for your account are displayed directly on this page.
