Self-host

Server Logs

This article contains information about accessing and configuring the storage of server logs. The particulars will depend on your deployment method:

Logs in real time

If you've deployed Bitwarden with Docker, use the docker compose logs -f command to follow logging in real-time from the terminal or command-line. Note that this command should be run from the /bwdata/docker directory:

Bash
cd /opt/bitwarden/bwdata/docker
docker compose logs -f

Logs in storage

Logs created by self-hosted Bitwarden servers are, by default, stored in bwdata/logs/.

To change the default log storage location, access your global.override.env file and set the environment variable globalSettings__logDirectory= to the desired location.

After changing environment variables, you will be required to restart your server to apply the new configuration:

  • If you're using the standard deployment method, use the bitwarden.sh or bitwarden.ps1 restart command.

  • If you're deploying Bitwarden manually or offline, use docker compose down and back up, for example:

    Bash
    docker compose -f ./docker/docker-compose.yml down && docker compose -f ./docker/docker-compose.yml up -d

Download logs

If you've deployed Bitwarden with Docker using the bitwarden.sh or bitwarden.ps1 installation script, you can additionally use the compresslogs command to download a tarball of all server logs, or all server logs in a specified date range:

Bash
./bitwarden.sh compresslogs 20240304 20240305
.\bitwarden.ps1 -compresslogs 20240304 20240305