What is Raw Access Logs?

There are many features in your web server. One of them is Raw acess logs. But what is raw access logs and what's the purpose for?Raw access logs is a file or a group of files that has all the details regarding the hits your website receives daily. Raw access logs report how many times your server have been accessed. It even shows the IP address, the browser type, and the platform used by the visitor, together with the date and exact time of his visit. To give you a clearer picture of what these logs are all about, below is a sample entry on a raw access logs file:

123.12.231.9 - - [28/Aug/2007:09:12:66 -0800] "GET /image.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 1406 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10.1" "www.coolestwebsite.com"

If you're using cPanel web hosting, then you might have encountered the Raw Access Logs icon located at the main interface. By clicking this, you'll gain access to your Raw Access logs menu wherein a list of your managed domain or subdomains are shown. To view the raw access logs of any of your managed domain, just select one and download it. Open the log file using a text editor and begin studying its contents because doing so can benefit you in three (3) ways:

1. Spot Abusive Users

With a raw access logs file, you can detect if somebody is messing around with your files. If you spotted an abusive user, ban his IP address found on the raw access logs file, so he can no longer request files from your domain.

2. Clean Up Clutters

You can check which of your files is using up too much bandwidth from file requests using raw logs files. If this file is not serving a good purpose, then it's time to get rid of it to avoid consuming a large amount of bandwidth.

3. Get Ready for Some Changes

You see, raw access logs will help you determine if there's a need to buy additional space or a hosting account upgrade. Requests of important files may increase in numbers over time. And, the only way to cope with this is by applying changes, like getting yourself a new host or a higher hosting plan.