Raw Access

Raw Access lets you download the full Apache access log for any of your domains as a gzipped file. It’s the same log Visitors reads from, but without the 1,000-row cap and without the cPanel UI in the way.

Raw Access tool with archive options and per-domain download links — cPanel home → Metrics → Raw Access

What’s on the page

Two sections:

Configuration at the top. Two checkboxes that change what cPanel does with old logs.
Download list at the bottom. One row per domain, with download links for the current and any archived logs.

The two configuration toggles

Toggle	What it does	Recommended
Archive logs in your home directory at the end of each month	Keeps a permanent monthly archive at `~/logs/` so old data doesn’t disappear when the live log rotates.	On, unless you’re tight on disk.
Remove the previous month’s archived logs from your home directory at the end of each month	Deletes the archive after it’s served. Keeps disk use flat.	Off, unless you’re tight on disk.

The combination of “archive on, remove off” gives you a full historical record. “Archive off” means once the live log rotates (daily on most plans), older entries are gone.

What’s in the file

A standard Apache combined-format log:

192.0.2.42 - - [27/Apr/2026:14:30:11 +0000] "GET /blog/post-slug HTTP/1.1" 200 18243 "https://google.com/search" "Mozilla/5.0 ..."

Fields, left to right: client IP, identd (always -), authenticated user (- if anonymous), timestamp, request line, status code, response size in bytes, referrer, user agent. Compatible with every log analyzer that takes Apache combined: GoAccess, Apache Log Viewer, AWStats (when imported), awk one-liners.

What to do with the download

The file is gzipped to keep the download small. On macOS or Linux:

gunzip yourdomain.com.gz
tail -100 yourdomain.com

Common one-liners:

# Top 20 IPs by hit count
awk '{print $1}' yourdomain.com | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

# All 5xx responses
awk '$9 ~ /^5/' yourdomain.com

# Count of unique URLs hit today
awk '{print $7}' yourdomain.com | sort -u | wc -l

For a visual analyzer without leaving the browser, run GoAccess over the file:

goaccess yourdomain.com -o report.html --log-format=COMBINED

Logs rotate daily. The “current” log shown on this page is today’s entries; yesterday’s are already in the archive (if archiving is on) or already overwritten (if not).

Common issues

The download is empty or 0 bytes

Either no requests have hit the domain since the last rotation, or the log archive setting is off and the previous archive was already swept. Toggle archiving on, wait a day, and try again.

I want logs older than the archive can hold

Open a support ticket. We retain server-level logs for a longer window than the per-account archive. We can pull a specific date range for you.

My home directory is filling up because of `~/logs/`

Tick Remove the previous month’s archived logs, or move the directory to off-server storage on your own (e.g., a monthly cron that uploads ~/logs/*.gz to S3 and deletes the local copy).

cPanel Control Panels

Virtual Containers

What’s on the page

The two configuration toggles

What’s in the file

What to do with the download

Common issues

Need a hand?

Open a ticket

Live chat

​What’s on the page

​The two configuration toggles

​What’s in the file

​What to do with the download

​Common issues

​Need a hand?

Open a ticket

Live chat

What’s on the page

The two configuration toggles

What’s in the file

What to do with the download

Common issues

Need a hand?