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15.5.7. Logging Options

The following lists directives which affect vsftpd's logging behavior.
  • dual_log_enable — When enabled in conjunction with xferlog_enable, vsftpd writes two files simultaneously: a wu-ftpd-compatible log to the file specified in the xferlog_file directive (/var/log/xferlog by default) and a standard vsftpd log file specified in the vsftpd_log_file directive (/var/log/vsftpd.log by default).
    The default value is NO.
  • log_ftp_protocol — When enabled in conjunction with xferlog_enable and with xferlog_std_format set to NO, all FTP commands and responses are logged. This directive is useful for debugging.
    The default value is NO.
  • syslog_enable — When enabled in conjunction with xferlog_enable, all logging normally written to the standard vsftpd log file specified in the vsftpd_log_file directive (/var/log/vsftpd.log by default) is sent to the system logger instead under the FTPD facility.
    The default value is NO.
  • vsftpd_log_file — Specifies the vsftpd log file. For this file to be used, xferlog_enable must be enabled and xferlog_std_format must either be set to NO or, if xferlog_std_format is set to YES, dual_log_enable must be enabled. It is important to note that if syslog_enable is set to YES, the system log is used instead of the file specified in this directive.
    The default value is /var/log/vsftpd.log.
  • xferlog_enable — When enabled, vsftpd logs connections (vsftpd format only) and file transfer information to the log file specified in the vsftpd_log_file directive (/var/log/vsftpd.log by default). If xferlog_std_format is set to YES, file transfer information is logged but connections are not, and the log file specified in xferlog_file (/var/log/xferlog by default) is used instead. It is important to note that both log files and log formats are used if dual_log_enable is set to YES.
    The default value is NO. Note, in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the value is set to YES.
  • xferlog_file — Specifies the wu-ftpd-compatible log file. For this file to be used, xferlog_enable must be enabled and xferlog_std_format must be set to YES. It is also used if dual_log_enable is set to YES.
    The default value is /var/log/xferlog.
  • xferlog_std_format — When enabled in conjunction with xferlog_enable, only a wu-ftpd-compatible file transfer log is written to the file specified in the xferlog_file directive (/var/log/xferlog by default). It is important to note that this file only logs file transfers and does not log connections to the server.
    The default value is NO. Note, in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the value is set to YES.

Important

To maintain compatibility with log files written by the older wu-ftpd FTP server, the xferlog_std_format directive is set to YES under Red Hat Enterprise Linux. However, this setting means that connections to the server are not logged.
To both log connections in vsftpd format and maintain a wu-ftpd-compatible file transfer log, set dual_log_enable to YES.
If maintaining a wu-ftpd-compatible file transfer log is not important, either set xferlog_std_format to NO, comment the line with a hash mark (#), or delete the line entirely.
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