Mattermost logging

Available on all plans

Cloud and self-hosted deployments

By default, all Mattermost editions write logs to both the console and to the mattermost.log file in a machine-readable JSON format.

Note

Mattermost Enterprise and Professional customers can additionally log directly to syslog and TCP socket destination targets.

System admins can customize the following logging options based on your business practices and needs by going to System Console > Environment > Logging or by editing the config.json file directly.

Console logs

Console logs feature verbose debug level log messages written to the console using the standard output stream (stdout).

Customize the following console logs by going to System Console > Environment > Logging or by editing the config.json file directly:

• Stop outputting console logs

• Adjust console log level

• Output console logs as plain text & colorize plain text log level details

• Omit webhook debug messages

File logs

File logs feature info level log messages including errors and information around startup and initialization and webhook debug messages. The file is stored in ./logs/mattermost.log, rotated at 100 MB, and archived to a separate file in the same directory.

Customize the following file logs by going to System Console > Environment > Logging or by editing the config.json file directly:

• Stop outputting file logs

• Adjust file log level

• Output file logs as plain text

• Change where the file is stored

You can optionally output log records to any combination of console, local file, syslog, and TCP socket targets, each featuring additional customization. See Advanced Logging for details.

Define logging output

Define logging output in JSON format in the System Console by going to Environment > Logging > Advanced Logging or by editing the config.json file directly. You can use the sample JSON below as a starting point.

{
    "console1": {
        "Type": "console",
        "Format": "json",
        "Levels": [
            {"ID": 5, "Name": "debug", "Stacktrace": false},
            {"ID": 4, "Name": "info", "Stacktrace": false, "color": 36},
            {"ID": 3, "Name": "warn", "Stacktrace": false},
            {"ID": 2, "Name": "error", "Stacktrace": true, "color": 31},
            {"ID": 1, "Name": "fatal", "Stacktrace": true, "color": 31},
            {"ID": 0, "Name": "panic", "Stacktrace": true, "color": 31},
            {"ID": 10, "Name": "stdlog", "Stacktrace": false}
        ],
        "Options": {
            "Out": "stdout"
        },
        "MaxQueueSize": 1000
    },
    "file1": {
        "Type": "file",
        "Format": "json",
        "Levels": [
            {"ID": 5, "Name": "debug", "Stacktrace": false},
            {"ID": 4, "Name": "info", "Stacktrace": false},
            {"ID": 3, "Name": "warn", "Stacktrace": false},
            {"ID": 2, "Name": "error", "Stacktrace": true},
            {"ID": 1, "Name": "fatal", "Stacktrace": true},
            {"ID": 0, "Name": "panic", "Stacktrace": true}
        ],
        "Options": {
            "Compress": true,
            "Filename": "mattermost_logging.log",
            "MaxAgeDays": 1,
            "MaxBackups": 10,
            "MaxSizeMB": 100
        },
        "MaxQueueSize": 1000
    },
    "file2": {
        "Type": "file",
        "Format": "json",
        "Levels": [
            {"ID": 2, "Name": "error", "Stacktrace": true},
            {"ID": 1, "Name": "fatal", "Stacktrace": true},
            {"ID": 0, "Name": "panic", "Stacktrace": true}
        ],
        "Options": {
            "Compress": true,
            "Filename": "mattermost_logging_errors.log",
            "MaxAgeDays": 30,
            "MaxBackups": 10,
            "MaxSizeMB": 100
        },
        "MaxQueueSize": 1000
    }
}

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Audit logging (Beta)

Note

Available only on Enterprise plans

By default, Mattermost doesn’t write audit logs locally to a file on the server. You can enable and customize experimental audit logging in Mattermost to record activities and events performed within a Mattermost workspace, such as access to the Mattermost REST API or mmctl.

Tip

From Mattermost v9.3, you can enable and customize advanced logging for AD/LDAP events separately from other logging.

• Logs are recorded asynchronously to reduce latency to the caller, and are stored separately from general logging.

• During short spans of inability to write to targets, the audit records buffer in memory with a configurable maximum record cap. Based on typical audit record volumes, it could take many minutes to fill the buffer. After that, the records are dropped, and the record drop event is logged.

You can define whether audit events are output to file, the name and path of the audit logging file, the maximum size of each file, the maximum number of days before triggering a rotation, the maximum number of rotated files to keep, whether files are compressed using GZIP, and how many audit records can be queued/buffered at any point in time when writing to a file.

In addition, you can output audit log records to any combination of console, local file, syslog, and TCP socket targets, each featuring additional customization. See Advanced Logging for details.

Warning

• From Mattermost v7.2, experimental audit logging beta is a breaking change from previous releases in cases where customers looking to parse previous audit logs with the new format.

• The format and content of an audit log record has changed to become standardized for all events using a standard JSON schema.

• Existing tools which ingest or parse audit log records may need to be modified.

---

Advanced logging

Note

Available only on Enterprise plans

System admins can output log and audit records to any combination of console, local file, syslog, and TCP socket targets. Each output target features additional configuration options you can customize for your Mattermost deployment.

Tip

• From Mattermost v9.3, system admins can configure advanced logging options in the System Console using multi-line JSON by going to Environment > Logging.

• Alternatively, admins can configure advanced logging within the AdvancedLoggingJSON section of the config.json file using multi-line JSON or escaped JSON as a string.

• Mattermost Team Edition customers can output audit log records to the console or a file.

Advanced logging options can be configured to:

• Enable trace logging for AD/LDAP to troubleshoot authentication issues.

• Capture errors and panics in a separate, monitored file that triggers alerts.

• Capture production debug and error logs in a separate file with log file rotation to reproduce issues, while enforcing a cap on the amount of disk space the debug logs are allowed to use.

• Audit every API endpoint accessed during a user workflow.

Configuring advanced logging includes the following steps:

• Define log output as multi-line JSON or a filespec to another configuration file.

• Specify destination targets, including any combination of console, local file, syslog, and TCP socket targets.

• Configure format preferences for plain, JSON, or GELF output.

• Configure log levels & events

• Configure target-specific settings

Define advanced log output

Multi-line JSON

In the example below, file output is written to ./logs/audit.log in plain text and includes all audit log levels & events. Older logs are kept for 1 day, and up to a total of 10 backup log files are kept at a time. Logs are rotated using gzip when the maximum size of the log file reaches 500 MB. A maximum of 1000 audit records can be queued/buffered while writing to the file.

"AdvancedLoggingJSON": {
    "file_1": {
        "Type": "file",
        "Format": "plain",
        "Levels": [
        { "id": 100, "name": "audit-api" },
        { "id": 101, "name": "audit-content" },
        { "id": 102, "name": "audit-permissions" },
        { "id": 103, "name": "audit-cli" }
        ],
        "Options": {
            "Compress": true,
            "Filename": "./logs/audit.log",
            "MaxAgeDays": 1,
            "MaxBackups": 10,
            "MaxSizeMB": 500
        },
        "MaxQueueSize": 1000
    }
}

Filespec

Advanced logging configuration can be pointed to a filespec to another configuration file, rather than multi-line JSON, to keep the config.json file tidy:

"AdvancedLoggingJSON": "/path/to/audit_log_config.json"

The separate configuration file includes the multi-line JSON instead.

In the example below, the first output is written to the console in plain text and includes all audit log levels, events, and command outputs. A pipe | delimiter is placed between fields.

A second output is written to ./logs/audit.log in plain text in a machine-readable JSON format and includes all audit log levels, events, and command outputs. Older logs are kept for 1 day, and up to a total of 10 backup log files are kept at a time. Logs are rotated using GZIP when the maximum size of the log file reaches 500 MB. A maximum of 1000 audit records can be queued/buffered while writing to the file.

Contents of audit_log_config.json file:

{
"sample-console": {
    "type": "console",
    "format": "plain",
    "format_options": {
            "delim": " | "
    },
    "levels": [
    { "id": 100, "name": "audit-api" },
    { "id": 101, "name": "audit-content" },
    { "id": 102, "name": "audit-permissions" },
    { "id": 103, "name": "audit-cli" }
    ],
    "options": {
    "out": "stdout"
    },
    "maxqueuesize": 1000
},
"sample-file": {
    "type": "file",
    "format": "json",
    "levels": [
    { "id": 100, "name": "audit-api" },
    { "id": 101, "name": "audit-content" },
    { "id": 102, "name": "audit-permissions" },
    { "id": 103, "name": "audit-cli" }
    ],
    "options": {
    "compress": true,
    "filename": "./logs/audit.log",
    "max_age": 1,
    "max_backups": 10,
    "max_size": 500
    },
    "maxqueuesize": 1000
}
}

Specify destination targets

Log records can be sent to any combination of console, local file, syslog, and TCP socket targets. Log targets have been chosen based on support for the vast majority of log aggregators and other log analysis tools, without needing additional software installed.

System Admins can define multiple log targets to:

• Mirror log output to files and log aggregators for redundancy.

• Log certain entries to specific destinations. For example, all audit-content records can be routed to a different destination than the other levels.

• Admins can also temporarily disable log targets by setting its type to none.

Configure format preferences

System admins can control log formatting per target.

Plain log format configuration options

Key	Type	Description
disable_timestamp	bool	Disables output of the timestamp. Default is false.
disable_level	bool	Disables output of the level name. Default is false.
disable_msg	bool	Disables output of the message text. Default is false.
disable_fields	bool	Disables output of all fields. Default is false.
disables_stacktrace	bool	Disables output of stack traces. Default is false.
delim	string	Delimiter placed between fields. Default is single space.
min_level_len	number	Minimum level name length. When level names are less than the minimum, level names are padded with spaces. Default is 0.
min_msg_len	number	Minimum message length. When message text is less than the minimum, message text is padded with spaces. Default is 0.
timestamp_format	string	Format for timestamps. Default is RFC3339.
line_end	string	Alternative end of line character(s). Default is n.
enable_color	bool	Enables color for targets that support color output. Default is false.

JSON log format configuration options

Key	Type	Description
disable_timestamp	bool	Disables output of the timestamp. Default is false.
disable_level	bool	Disables output of the log level display name. Default is false.
disable_msg	bool	Disables output of the message text. Default is false.
disable_fields	bool	Disables output of all fields. Default is false.
disables_stacktrace	bool	Disables output of stack traces. Default is false.
timestamp_format	string	Format for timestamps. Default is RFC3339.

GELF log format configuration options

Key	Type	Description
hostname	string	Outputs a custom hostname in log records. If omitted, hostname is taken from the operating system.

Configure log levels and events

Key	Type	Description
id	number	Unique identifier of the log level.
name	string	Name of the log level.
stacktrace	bool	Outputs a stack trace. Default is false.
color	number	The ANSI color code used to output parts of the log record. Supported values include: Black: 30 Red: 31 Green: 32 Yellow: 33 Blue: 34 Magenta: 35 Cyan: 36 White: 37

Log levels

ID	Name	Description
100	audit-api	API events
101	audit-content	Content changes. This log level can generate considerably more records than the other audit log levels.
102	audit-permissions	Permission changes
103	audit-cli	CLI operations
140	LDAPError	AD/LDAP authentication errors
141	LDAPWarn	AD/LDAP authentication warnings
142	LDAPInfo	AD/LDAP authentication information logs
143	LDAPDebug	AD/LDAP authentication debug logs
144	LDAPTrace	AD/LDAP authentication trace logs. Replaces LdapSetings.trace from Mattermost v9.3.

Configure target-specific settings

Console target configuration options

Console targets can be either stdout or stderr.

• The standard output stream, stout, is typically used for command output that prints the results of a command to the user.

• The standard error stream, sterr, is typically used to print any errors that occur when a program is running.

File target configuration options

File targets support rotation and compression triggered by size and/or duration.

Key	Type	Description
filename	string	Full path to the output file.
max_size	number	Maximum size, in megabytes (MB), the log file can grow before it gets rotated. Default is 100 MB.
max_age	number	Maximum number of days to retain old log files based on the timestamp encoded in the filename. Default is 0 which disables the removal of old log files.
max_backups	number	Maximum number of old log files to retain. Default is 0 which retains all old log files. Note: Configuring max_age can result in old log files being deleted regardless of this configuration value.
compress	bool	Compress rotated log files using gzip. Default is false.

Syslog target configuration options

Note

Available only on Enterprise plans

Syslog targets support local and remote syslog servers, with or without TLS transport. Syslog target support requires Mattermost Enterprise.

Key	Type	Description
host	string	IP or domain name of the server receiving the log records.
port	number	Port number for the server receiving the log records.
tls	bool	Create a TLS connection to the server receiving the log records. Default is false.
cert	string	Path to a cert file (.pem) to be used when establishing a TLS connection to the server.
insecure	bool	Mattermost accepts any certificate presented by the server, and any host name in that certificate. Default is false. Note: Should only be used in testing environments, and shouldn’t be used in production environments.

TCP target configuration options

Note

Available only on Enterprise plans

The TCP socket targets can be configured with an IP address or domain name, port, and optional TLS certificate. TCP socket target support requires Mattermost Enterprise.

Key	Type	Description
host	string	IP or domain name of the server receiving the log records.
port	number	Port number for the server receiving the log records.
tls	bool	Create a TLS connection to the server receiving the log records. Default is false.
cert	string	Path to a cert file (.pem) to be used when establishing a TLS connection to the server.
insecure	bool	Mattermost accepts any certificate presented by the server, and any host name in that certificate. Default is false. Note: Should only be used in testing environments, and shouldn’t be used in production environments.
tag	string	Syslog tag field.

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Frequently asked questions

Does Mattermost have an audit log besides the system auditd?

Yes. See the audit logging documentation for details.

When syslog is configured as the target, does it contain the IP address of the emitter of the data (i.e., the Mattermost app node)?

Yes. That is a function of the syslog daemon (receiver). Typically, all the log lines are prefixed with a timestamp and the hostname of the node sending the data. For example, a log line starts with: Nov 28 10:56:59 tower kernel: [1072437.431123]  ...., where tower is the hostname of the server that generated the log line.

Once audit logs are enabled, can audit logging track events where an admin disables or modifies the audit log settings?

Yes, though it depends on how audit logs are configured. Audit log config can be specified via REST API, mmctl, System Console, file on disk, and using environment variables. When changes are made via the REST API or System Console, there is an audit record. However, the Mattermost server can’t capture changes to a configuration file or via environment variables.

Do server logs show any information about a service or similar stopping/updating when auditing would be disabled?

Yes. When updating the audit log configuration via REST API, mmctl, or System Console, the last event of the audit log should be about the admin user updating the config of the server, which helps your security team identify which actions took place in the system and by whom.

How do I omit incoming webhook details from the logs?

See enable-webhook-debugging

How do I adjust the maximum log field size?

See maximum-field-size