Synchronet's servers and utilities can output status to a lot of different log files that are helpful for monitoring activity and debugging issues:
The persistent files below are one part of the log story; the other is each server's live console output — the status messages scrolling while the BBS is running. On *nix those go through the system log; which file in /var/log/ they land in depends on the configured syslog facility and your rsyslogd/syslog-ng setup (typically /var/log/syslog on Debian or /var/log/messages on others, by default). The repo ships an optional install/rsyslog.d/sbbslog.conf that routes Synchronet's output to a dedicated /var/log/sbbs.log when LogFacility=3 is set in the [UNIX] section of sbbs.ini. Under systemd, journalctl --follow -u <unit> is the most reliable view. See syslog for details. On Windows the destination depends on how Synchronet is being run: sbbsctrl shows messages live in its per-server panes (and can optionally persist them — see the TS/WS/MS/FS rows below); when running under Windows NT Services without sbbsctrl, messages are sent to the Windows Event Log (viewable via Event Viewer). MQTT carries the same stream to subscribers when configured.
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
ctrl/csts.tab | Cumulative statistics log, parsed/displayed by Synchronet and its utilities (e.g. SLOG, slog.js, sbbsctrl) |
data/error.log | Unexpected events that should be addressed by the sysop |
data/events.log | Event Thread activity from the Terminal Server |
data/crash.log | User activity before suspected crashes of Terminal Server nodes |
data/guru.log | User chat sessions with The Guru |
data/hack.log | Suspected hack attempts |
data/hungup.log | Users that disconnected while executing an external program on the Terminal Server |
data/logon.lst | Legacy list of terminal server user logons, preformatted |
data/logon.jsonl | List of terminal server user logons, used by logonlist module |
data/sbbsecho.log | SBBSecho (FidoNet EchoMail program) activity |
data/sendmail.log | Email sending activity from the sendmail module |
data/spam.log | Suspected SPAM delivery attempts to the Mail Server |
data/logs/http-<host>-<date>.log | HTTP access log from the Web Server, one file per virtual host per day (the actual filename is <HttpLogFile><vhost>-YYYY-MM-DD.log; <host> is omitted when virtual hosts are off). The default filename prefix is logs/http-; override with HttpLogFile in the [Web] section of sbbs.ini. Access logging is enabled by default — to disable it, remove the HTTP_LOGGING flag from [Web] Options. CustomLogFormat overrides the default NCSA-combined line format. |
data/logs/<date>.log | Terminal Server user activity |
data/logs/<date>.lol | Terminal Server user statistics upon log-off |
data/logs/FS<date>.log | FTP Server activity from sbbsctrl, optional |
data/logs/MS<date>.log | Mail Server activity from sbbsctrl, optional |
data/logs/TS<date>.log | Terminal Server activity from sbbsctrl, optional (as of v3.22a) |
data/logs/WS<date>.log | Web Server activity from sbbsctrl, optional (as of v3.22a) |
The *.log files without a date in their filename support automatic and configurable rotation (e.g. via SCFG->System->Advanced->Maximum Log File Size and echocfg->Global Settings->Maximum Log File Size).