What are the request types in Nginx logs

The Nginx server log records various client request information. This article will introduce in detail the common request types and related information in the Nginx log.

1. HTTP request method

Nginx logs record a variety of HTTP request methods to indicate how clients interact with servers:

1. GET: The most commonly used request method, used to obtain data from the server, such as web pages, pictures, CSS files, etc. Request parameters are usually included in the URL.

2. POST: is used to submit data to the server, often used for form submission or file upload. Data is contained in the request body, not the URL.

3. PUT: Used to upload files or update existing resources on the server. The data is also located in the request body.

4. DELETE: Used to delete the specified resource on the server.

5. HEAD: Similar to GET, but only returns the response header information, not the actual content. Commonly used to check the metadata of resources.

6. OPTIONS: Query the communication options supported by the server, such as allowed HTTP methods and header information.

7. TRACE: Used to debug and echo the request received by the server. It is not recommended to use in production environments because it may leak sensitive information.

8. CONNECT: is used to establish tunnel connections, usually used in HTTPS proxy.

2. Log level and format

Nginx logs are distinguished by level and support multiple log formats:

• Log level: mainly includes access_log (access log) and error_log (Error log). access_log records all client requests, error_log records server errors and warnings. The two can be used in combination.

• Log format: Nginx provides a variety of predefined formats ( combined , common , small ) and custom formats. combined contains the most comprehensive information, common is slightly simplified, and small only contains basic information. Custom formats allow selectively including the required fields.

3. Example of log entry

A typical access log entry looks like this:

 <code>127.0.0.1 - - [24/Oct/2023:13:45:46 0000] "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 612 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/96.0.4664.110 Safari/537.36"</code>

This entry contains information such as client IP address, timestamp, HTTP method, URL, status code, response size, Referer and User-Agent. By analyzing these log data, administrators can effectively monitor server performance, troubleshoot problems, and understand user behavior.

The above is the detailed content of What are the request types in Nginx logs. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!