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Logging and Monitoring

Operations maturity starts with observability. OpenLiteSpeed gives you several useful signals, but you need to know what each one is telling you.

Access Logs​

Log Format​

Access logs show who requested what, when, and with which status code, size, and user agent. They are the first place to verify request flow and traffic patterns.

Log Rotation​

Rotate logs before they grow without control. Either use built-in rotation settings or integrate with system log rotation policies.

Error Logs​

Debug Levels​

Increase log verbosity only while diagnosing a problem. High debug levels on busy servers can generate noise and additional disk I/O.

Troubleshooting​

Error logs are where you confirm:

  • config parsing failures
  • permission problems
  • PHP socket issues
  • rewrite mistakes
  • TLS and certificate load errors

Real-Time Statistics​

Server Dashboard​

The WebAdmin dashboard provides live status for requests, listeners, virtual hosts, and resource usage.

Resource Monitoring​

Pair OpenLiteSpeed metrics with OS tools such as top, htop, vmstat, and disk monitoring so you can distinguish application issues from system pressure.

Performance Metrics​

Requests Per Second​

RPS helps you estimate load level and compare peak periods or post-change behavior.

Connection Usage​

Connection counts reveal whether you are hitting concurrency or keep-alive pressure.

Worker Processes​

Worker and PHP process visibility helps explain queueing, slow responses, or memory exhaustion.

What Good Monitoring Looks Like​

  • Access logs retained long enough for incident analysis
  • Error logs reviewed after config changes and deployments
  • CPU, RAM, disk, and network tracked at the host level
  • Traffic spikes correlated with cache hit rate and PHP load
  • Alerting defined for certificate expiry, disk growth, and process failures