PHP Output to Syslog on Ubuntu

There are just a few things you need to know in order to output trace or error information to syslog on an Ubuntu system (the following is probably true for other Debian-based distributions, too) from PHP.

1. Set error logging to syslog in php.ini (the system-wide php.ini can be found at /etc/php5/php.ini):

   error_log = syslog

2. Restart Apache:

   $ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

3. Use the error_log() function to output your error messages.
4. View the output of error messages:

   $ tail -f /var/log/syslog

   The -f flag causes new messages to be appended to the output of tail.

Labels: PHP, programming, syslog, Ubuntu