11-access-logs-for-your-localhost.md

Accessing HTTP access logs for your localhost

Occasionally it's useful to look at the incoming access logs.

Play doesn't contain anything that allows a traditional httpd log, but it's simple to stick a web server in front of it and proxy requests to your application.

Here's how I did it.

Install nginx - a web server with proxypass capabilities,

brew install nginx

Tell it to proxy to your play application,

-- /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf

...

server {
    listen       8182;   <--- the nginx port number
    server_name  localhost;

    access_log  logs/host.access.log;

    location / { 
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP  $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9002;   <--- your play application
    }   
}

...

Run the nginx server (your nginx binary might be somewhere else),

/usr/local/Cellar/nginx/1.2.1/sbin/nginx -s reload

Then fire up an article server on the port specified,

./sbt001
> project article
> run 9002

Then make a request to nginx,

open http://localhost:8182/sport/2012/jun/12/london-2012-olympic-opening-ceremony

And poke around your log file (your log file might be somewhere else),

tail -f /usr/local/Cellar/nginx/1.2.1/logs/host.access.log