I have an Ubuntu server where I am blocking some IPs with ufw
. I enabled logging, but I don't know where to find the logs. Where might the logs be or why might ufw
not be logging?
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Google is your friend askubuntu.com/questions/113439/… – user9517 Jun 19 '13 at 5:49
Perform sudo ufw status verbose
to see if you're even logging in the first place. If you're not, perform sudo ufw logging on
if it isn't. If it is logging, check /var/log/
for files starting with ufw
. For example, sudo ls /var/log/ufw*
If you are logging, but there are no /var/log/ufw*
files, check to see if rsyslog
is running: sudo service rsyslog status
. If rsyslog is running, ufw is logging, and there are still no logs files, search through common log files for any mention of UFW
. For example: grep -i ufw /var/log/syslog
and grep -i ufw /var/log/messages
as well as grep -i ufw /var/log/kern.log
.
If you find a ton of ufw
messages in the syslog, messages, and kern.log file, then rsyslog might need to be told to log all UFW messages to a separate file. Add a line to the top of /etc/rsyslog.d/50-default.conf
that says the following two lines:
:msg, contains, “UFW” -/var/log/ufw.log
& ~
And you should then have a ufw.log file that contains all ufw
messages!
NOTE:
Check the 50-default.conf
file for pre-existing configurations.
Make sure to backup the file before saving edits!
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It looks like the
ufw status
(andufw status verbose
) commands return if the firewall its self is running, not logging. If the command comes back as inactive, then I believe that means that ufw is totally disabled (which it is on my system). I'm curious now what firewall is running! Edit: According to the Ubuntu Server guide, there is no firewall enabled by default - iptables is essentially the firewall. You can follow the linked guide to get ufw running. – TGP1994 Feb 27 '20 at 23:03 -
Maybe update your answer that these days there is /etc/rsyslog.d/20-ufw.conf with the correct config. – Carlo Wood Apr 12 '20 at 11:17
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The output of
sudo ufw status verbose
is "Logging: on (low)". I have no logs. How can I set it to as high as possible? – Carlo Wood Apr 12 '20 at 11:18
You can also find UFW's logs in the kernel buffer.
sudo dmesg | grep '\[UFW'