How to log messages to a log file in a specific path from a bash script

Posted by Erik on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Erik
Published on 2012-09-25T18:19:45Z Indexed on 2012/09/25 21:37 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 265

Filed under:

bash

|

logging

|

syslog

How do you log messages to a log file in a specific path from a bash script?

A naive implementation would be commands like:

echo My message >>/my/custom/path/to/my_script.log

But this probably has many disadvantages (no log rotation for example). I could use the 'logger' command, but it does not support logs in custom paths as far as I know and is not easy to configure if you have lots of bash scripts that could use a custom log file.

In a scripting language like Ruby all this is quite easy: https://github.com/rudionrails/yell/wiki/101-the-datefile-adapter I could also make my own logger command based on this ruby library and call it from my bash scripts, but I guess there is already a well known solution that provides similar behavior for shell scripts?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about bash

launching a program from bash causes bash to go to new prompt

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
When I run a program from the console, e.g. me@box:~$ firefox I expect the console to log error messages (I think this is std out or std err?) and other items from the program, firefox in this case. But today I notice that bash just opens the program and goes to a new prompt, e.g. me@box:~$… >>> More
How to debug a .bash_profile

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I was updating my .bash_profile, and unfortunetly I made a few updates and now I am getting: env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory -bash: tar: command… >>> More
Every command fails with "command not found" after changing .bash_profile?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I was updating my .bash_profile, and unfortunetly I made a few updates and now I am getting: env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory -bash: tar: command… >>> More
Is there any fundamental difference between piping in mac and linux?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
ps -e | grep bash sample output from a linux machine: 1128 pts/14 00:00:00 bash 7491 pts/7 00:00:00 bash 12651 pts/14 00:00:00 bash 16145 pts/2 00:00:00 bash sample output from a mac machine: 58352 ttys000 0:00.09 login -pfl username /bin/bash -c exec -la bash /bin/bash 58353 ttys000… >>> More
why is $0 set to -bash?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
First login process name seems to be set to "-bash", but if I subshell then it becomes "bash". for example: root@nowere:~# echo $0 -bash root@nowere:~# bash root@nowere:~# echo $0 bash -bash is causing some scripts to fail, such as . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule exec /usr/share/debconf/frontend… >>> More

Related posts about logging

log file is not getting created using JDK logging with Commons-logging

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
When I run the TestJcLLoggingService class log messages are coming to Console but no log file is created, please help me if you know the answer. two source files are pasted below. TestJcLLoggingService.java package com.amadeus.psp.pasd.logging; import org.apache.commons.logging.Log; import org… >>> More
Python logging before you run logging.basicConfig?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
It appears that if you invoke logging.info() BEFORE you run logging.basicConfig, the logging.basicConfig call doesn't have any effect. In fact, no logging occurs. Where is this behavior documented? I don't really understand. >>> More
Python: combine logging and wx so that logging stream is redirectet to stdout/stderr frame

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Here's the thing: I'm trying to combine the logging module with wx.App()'s redirect feature. My intention is to log to a file AND to stderr. But I want stderr/stdout redirected to a separate frame as is the feature of wx.App. My test code: import logging import wx class MyFrame(wx.Frame): … >>> More
Redirect logging output using custom logging handler

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi Guys, I'm using a module in my python app that writes a lot a of messages using the logging module. Initially I was using this in a console application and it was pretty easy to get the logging output to display on the console using a console handler. Now I've developed a GUI version of my app… >>> More
Java Logger API

as seen on Oracle Blogs - Search for 'Oracle Blogs'
This is a more like a tip rather than technical write up and serves as a quick intro for newbies. The logger API helps to diagnose application level or JDK level issues at runtime. There are 7 levels which decide the detailing in logging (SEVERE, WARNING, INFO, CONFIG, FINE, FINER, FINEST)… >>> More