DecaLog
Command Line Reference

DecaLog is fully usable from command-line, thanks to WP-CLI. You can set DecaLog options, view past or current triggered events and much more, without using a web browser.

Viewing events - wp log tail
Triggering events - wp log send
Accessing metrics - wp log metrics
Managing loggers - wp log logger
Using logger types - wp log type
Managing listeners - wp log listener
Getting DecaLog status - wp log status
Managing main settings - wp log settings
Misc flags
Piping and storing

Viewing events

DecaLog lets you use command-line to view past and currents events. All is done via the wp log tail [<count>] [--level=<level>] [--filter=<filter>] [--format=<format>] [--col=<columns>] [--theme=<theme>] [--yes] command.

If you don't specify <count>, DecaLog will launch an interactive logging session: it will display events as soon as they occur on your site. To quit this session, hit CTRL+C.

If you specifiy a value for <count> between 1 to 60, DecaLog will show you the count last events triggered on your site.

Note the tail command needs shared memory support on your server, both for web server and command-line configuration. If it's not already the case, you must activate the shmop PHP module.

Whether it's an interactive session or viewing past events, you can filter what is displayed as follows:

Minimal level

To display only events having a minimal level, use --level=<level> parameter. <level> can be info, notice, warning, error, critical, alert or emergency.

Note you can not use debug as minimal level because the internal logger which capture events for the tail command rejects them for this level.

Field filters

You can filter displayed events on fields too. To do it, use the --filter=<filter> parameter. <filter> is a json string containing "field":"regexp" pairs. The available fields are: 'channel', 'message', 'class', 'source', 'code', 'site_id' (on multisite only), 'user_id', 'remote_ip', 'url', 'verb', 'server', 'referrer', 'file', 'line', 'classname' and 'function'.

Each regular expression must be surrounded by / like that: "remote_ip":"/(135\.|164\.)/" and the whole filter must start with '{ and end with }' (see examples).

Outputted format

You can tailor the outputted format to fit your needs with the --format=<format> parameter. There's 3 available formats:

wp: that's the default format; it shows (after the standard details) the source component and the message.
http: it shows (after the standard details) the verb (get, post, etc.), IP source and relative url.
php: it shows (after the standard details) in which portion of code the event was triggered.

Columns count

By default, DecaLog will output each event string on a 160 character basis. If you want to change it, use --col=<columns> where <columns> is an integer between 80 and 400.

Colors scheme

To change the default color scheme to something more eyes-saving, use --theme.

If you prefer, you can even suppress all colorization with the standard --no-color flag.

Examples

To see all "live" events, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log tail
...

To see past alerts for user 1, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log tail 20 --filter='{"user_id":"/1+/"}' --level=alert
...

To see "live" events only triggered by WordPress core on cron calls, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log tail --filter='{"channel":"/cron/", "class":"/core/"}'
...

To see "live" error that occur with specific http verbs on Rest API calls, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log tail --filter='{"verb":"/(options|connect|trace)/", "class":"/api/"}' --level=error --format=http
...

Triggering events

This method is reserved to scripts; if you're a theme or plugin developer, you can trigger events right from your theme or plugin by using the DecaLog SDK.

Error code

You can specify a numerical error code with --code=<code>. If not specified, the error code will be 0.

Examples

To trigger a simple notice event, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log send notice 'All good!'
Success: message sent.

To trigger an error event with a 500 error code, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log send error 'Something went wrong' --code=500
Success: message sent.

Accessing Metrics

With the wp log metrics <list|dump|get> [<metrics_id>] [--format=<format>] [--detail=<detail>] [--stdout] command you can get insight about metrics .

Execution time for page rendering and initialization / shutdown sequences are not available in command line mode.

Listing metrics

To get a list of currently collated metrics, use wp log metrics list.

Dumping metrics

To dump all the currently collated metrics, use wp log metrics dump.

Getting metric value

To get the value of a specific metric, use wp log metrics get.

Examples

To get the value of the wordpress_php_php_execution_latency metric, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log metrics get wordpress_php_php_execution_latency
Success: wordpress_php_php_execution_latency current value is 4.0021340847015

Managing loggers

Listing loggers

To obtain a list of set loggers, use wp log logger list.

Starting or pausing loggers

To change the status of a logger, use wp log logger <start|pause> <uuid> where <uuid> is the identifier of the logger.

Cleaning or purging loggers

Some loggers allow to be cleaned (deletion of stale records) or purged (deletion of all records). To initiate such an operation on a logger, use wp log logger <clean|purge> <uuid> where <uuid> is the identifier of the logger.

Removing a logger

To permanently remove a logger, use wp log logger remove <uuid> where <uuid> is the identifier of the logger.

Modifying a logger

To modify a logger, use wp log logger set <uuid> --settings=<settings> where:

<uuid> is the identifier of the logger.
<settings> a json string containing "parameter":value pairs. The available parameters can be browsed with the wp log type describe command (see using logger types).

<settings> must start with '{ and end with }' (see examples).

Adding a logger

To add a logger, use wp log logger add <type> --settings=<settings> where:

<type> is the type of the logger. The available types can be obtained with the wp log type list command (see using logger types).
<settings> a json string containing "parameter":value pairs. The available parameters can be browsed with the wp log type describe command (see using logger types).

<settings> must start with '{ and end with }' (see examples).

Examples

To list the loggers, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log logger list
+--------------------------------------+-------------------------+---------------------------------+---------+
| uuid                                 | type                    | name                            | running |
+--------------------------------------+-------------------------+---------------------------------+---------+
| f1ee25c7-d9fe-42ee-86df-9394b411e2a7 | Pushover                | Alerting for helpdesk team      | no      |
| 93f84673-a623-4c15-825e-d867f35565ff | ChromePHP               | Debug in Chrome                 | no      |
| 078e124b-2122-4f03-91e9-2bbf70964618 | Browser console         | Debug in FireFox                | no      |
| 9553830a-75e7-4405-80c5-8bf726ccf45c | PHP error log           | Detailed logs                   | no      |
| 37cf1c00-d67d-4e7d-9518-e579f01407a7 | WordPress events log    | Events shared with sites admins | yes     |
| 5bacf078-2a1f-4c43-8961-4d8ca647661b | Rotating files          | Files on backup server          | yes     |
| df59a30d-dc30-4771-a4a5-a654f0a5cd46 | Fluentd                 | Full logs for StackDriver       | no      |
| 6d9943e5-b4fa-4dee-8b02-93a9294b1373 | Syslog                  | Logs on Synology                | no      |
| dce759b8-e9e8-4e9c-b62a-7d5c9fe160bf | Shared memory           | System auto-logger              | yes     |
| 8e2ee516-6f8d-40d1-ac16-c3e61274a41a | Slack                   | Warnings in #SysOps channel     | no      |
+--------------------------------------+-------------------------+---------------------------------+---------+

To start the logger identified by 'c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca', type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log logger start c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca
Success: logger c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca is now running.

To purge the logger identified by 'c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca' without confirmation prompt, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log logger purge c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca --yes
Success: logger c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca successfully purged.

To remove the logger identified by 'c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca' without confirmation prompt, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log logger remove c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca --yes
Success: logger c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca successfully removed.

To change the settings of the logger identified by 'c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca', type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log logger set c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca --settings='{"proc_trace": false, "level":"warning"}'
Success: logger c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca successfully set.

To add a WordPress logger, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log logger add WordpressHandler --settings='{"rotate": 8000, "purge": 5, "level":"warning", "proc_wp": true}'
Success: logger 5b09be13-16f6-4ced-972e-98408df0fd49 successfully created.

Using logger types

With the wp log type <list|describe> [<logger_type>] [--format=<format>] command you can query all available types for logger creation / modification and obtain description of corresponding settings. This command helps you to fine-tune loggers via the command-line.

Listing types

To obtain a list of available types, use wp log type list.

Describing types

To obtain the detail of a specific type, use wp log type describe <logger_type> where <logger_type> is one of the type listed by the wp log type list command.

In addition to a general description "sheet", this command outputs a detailed listing of the available settings that can be used in the wp log logger set and wp log logger add commands.

Examples

To list the types, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log type list
+-----------------------+-----------+-------------------------+------------+
| type                  | class     | name                    | version    |
+-----------------------+-----------+-------------------------+------------+
| BrowserConsoleHandler | debugging | Browser console         | 2.0.2      |
| ChromePHPHandler      | debugging | ChromePHP               | 2.0.2      |
| ElasticCloudHandler   | logging   | Elastic Cloud           | 2.0.0-dev1 |
| FluentHandler         | logging   | Fluentd                 | 2.0.0-dev1 |
| LogentriesHandler     | logging   | Logentries & insightOps | 2.0.0-dev1 |
| LogglyHandler         | logging   | Loggly                  | 2.0.2      |
| MailHandler           | alerting  | Mail                    | 2.0.0-dev1 |
| ErrorLogHandler       | logging   | PHP error log           | 2.0.2      |
| PshHandler            | alerting  | Pushover                | 2.0.0-dev1 |
| RotatingFileHandler   | logging   | Rotating files          | 2.0.2      |
| SematextHandler       | logging   | Sematext                | 2.0.0-dev1 |
| SlackWebhookHandler   | alerting  | Slack                   | 2.0.2      |
| StackdriverHandler    | logging   | Stackdriver             | 2.0.0-dev1 |
| SumoSysHandler        | logging   | Sumo Logic cloud-syslog | 2.0.0-dev1 |
| SyslogUdpHandler      | logging   | Syslog                  | 2.0.2      |
| WordpressHandler      | logging   | WordPress events log    | 2.0.0-dev1 |
+-----------------------+-----------+-------------------------+------------+

To obtain details about the WordpressHandler type, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log type describe WordpressHandler
              
WordPress events log - WordpressHandler
An events log stored in your WordPress database and available right in your admin dashboard.

Minimal Level

debug

Parameters

* Name - Used only in admin dashboard.
  - field name: name
  - field type: string
  - default value: "New Logger"

* Minimal level - Minimal reported level.
  - field name: level
  - field type: string
  - default value: "debug"
  - available values:
     "emergency": A panic condition. WordPress is unusable.
     "alert": A major operating error that undoubtedly affects the operations. It requires immediate investigation and corrective treatment.
     "critical": An operating error that undoubtedly affects the operations. It requires investigation and corrective treatment.
     "error": A minor operating error that may affects the operations. It requires investigation and preventive treatment.
     "warning": A significant condition indicating a situation that may lead to an error if recurring or if no action is taken. Does not usually affect the operations.
     "notice": A normal but significant condition. Now you know!
     "info": A standard information, just for you to know… and forget!
     "debug": An information for developers and testers. Only used for events related to application/system debugging.

* Events - Maximum number of events stored in this events log (0 for no limit).
  - field name: rotate
  - field type: integer
  - default value: 10000
  - range: [0-10000000]

[...]

* Reported details: Backtrace - Allows to log the full PHP and WordPress call stack.
  - field name: proc_trace
  - field type: boolean
  - default value: false

Example

{"rotate": 10000, "purge": 15}

Managing listeners

With the wp log listener <list|enable|disable|auto-on|auto-off> [<listener_id>] [--detail=<detail>] [--format=<format>] [--yes] [--stdout] command you can perform all available operations on listeners.

Listing listeners

To obtain a list of available listeners, use wp log listener list.

Enabling or disabling listeners

To enable or disable a listener, use wp log listener <enable|disable> <listener_id> where <listener_id> is the identifier of the listener.

You can individually enable or disable a listener nevertheless, if DecaLog is set to "auto-on", it will have no effect: all available listeners will be listening.

Auto listening

To change auto-listening mode, use wp log listener <auto-on|auto-off>.

Examples

To list the listeners, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log listener list
+----------------+----------------------------+-----------+---------+
| id             | name                       | available | enabled |
+----------------+----------------------------+-----------+---------+
| wpdb           | Database                   | yes       | auto    |
| itsec          | iThemes Security           | no        | auto    |
| jetpack        | Jetpack                    | yes       | auto    |
| php            | PHP                        | yes       | auto    |
| psr3           | PSR-3 compliant listeners  | yes       | auto    |
| redirection    | Redirection                | yes       | auto    |
| updraftplus    | UpdraftPlus Backup/Restore | no        | auto    |
| user-switching | User Switching             | no        | auto    |
| w3tc           | W3 Total Cache             | no        | auto    |
| woo            | WooCommerce                | no        | auto    |
| wordfence      | Wordfence Security         | no        | auto    |
| wpcore         | WordPress core             | yes       | auto    |
| wpmu           | WordPress MU               | no        | auto    |
| wsal           | WP Activity Log            | no        | auto    |
| supercache     | WP Super Cache             | no        | auto    |
+----------------+----------------------------+-----------+---------+

To enable the listener identified by 'php', type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log listener enable php
Success: the listener php is now enabled.

To deactivate auto-listening without confirmation prompt, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log listener auto-off --yes
Success: auto-listening is now deactivated.

Getting DecaLog status

To get detailed status and operation mode, use the wp log status command.

Managing main settings

To toggle on/off main settings, use wp log settings <enable|disable> <early-loading|auto-logging|auto-start>.

Available settings

early-loading: if activated, DecaLog will be loaded before all other plugins (recommended).
auto-logging: if activated, DecaLog will silently start the features needed by live console.
auto-start: if activated, when a new logger is added it automatically starts.

Example

To disable early-loading without confirmation prompt, type the following command:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log settings disable early-loading --yes
Success: early-loading is now deactivated.

Misc flags

For most commands, DecaLog lets you use the following flags:

--yes: automatically answer "yes" when a question is prompted during the command execution.
--stdout: outputs a clean STDOUT string so you can pipe or store result of command execution (see piping and storing).

It's not mandatory to use --stdout when using --format=count or --format=ids: in such cases --stdout is assumed.

Piping and storing

As DecaLog outputs only the element that makes the most sense when you use the --stdout flag, you can pipe commands the way you are used to doing it.

The wp log logger ... --stdout, for example, will in most case return the logger uuid. So you can "chain" commands to create, set and start a logger in one line:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log logger add WordpressHandler --stdout | xargs wp log logger set --settings='{"name":"Nice logger!"}' --stdout | xargs wp log logger start
Success: logger f75dc435-2c63-4f16-bb29-cf77a478da4a is now running.

On the same "scheme" you can pause all set loggers by iterating the wp log logger pause on all uuid returned by wp log logger list:

pierre@dev:~$ wp log logger list --format=ids | xargs -0 -d ' ' -I % wp log logger pause %
The logger c40c59dc-5e34-44a1-986d-e1ecb520e3ca is already paused.
The logger f1ee25c7-d9fe-42ee-86df-9394b411e2a7 is already paused.
The logger 93f84673-a623-4c15-825e-d867f35565ff is already paused.
The logger 078e124b-2122-4f03-91e9-2bbf70964618 is already paused.
The logger 9553830a-75e7-4405-80c5-8bf726ccf45c is already paused.
Success: logger 37cf1c00-d67d-4e7d-9518-e579f01407a7 is now paused.
Success: logger 5bacf078-2a1f-4c43-8961-4d8ca647661b is now paused.
The logger df59a30d-dc30-4771-a4a5-a654f0a5cd46 is already paused.
The logger 6d9943e5-b4fa-4dee-8b02-93a9294b1373 is already paused.
The logger 972d417f-2294-4888-8bfe-bf038e39f8e8 is already paused.
The logger 29fdb590-41a8-4a1d-98e5-465a7be10a96 is already paused.
Error: system loggers can't be managed.
The logger 83fdd893-0979-4bbb-848b-d38e8fbf813d is already paused.
The logger 9c6e7967-a1b7-447c-9ed5-ec73853a6867 is already paused.
The logger 8e2ee516-6f8d-40d1-ac16-c3e61274a41a is already paused.

You can use, of course, --stdout to store command result in variable when you write scripts:

#!/bin/bash

uuid=$(wp log logger start 37cf1c00-d67d-4e7d-9518-e579f01407a7 --stdout)
echo $uuid

And, as DecaLog sets exit code, you can use $? to write scripts too:

#!/bin/bash

wp log logger add FluentHandler --stdout | xargs wp log logger start

if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
  wp log send notice "All right!"
else
  wp log send error "Unable to start, aborting..."
  exit 1
fi

# continue

To know the meaning of DecaLog exit codes, just use the command wp log exitcode list.

Contribution

Do you want to make DecaLog a better plugin or improve WordPress observability? Whether you are a developer or not, you can help me to do it...

Contribute!

Support & Help

I?ll be glad to help you if you encounter issues with DecaLog. Just use the support section of the WordPress directory.

Get Support

DecaLogCommand Line Reference

Viewing events

Minimal level

Field filters

Outputted format

Columns count

Colors scheme

Examples

Triggering events

Error code

Examples

Accessing Metrics

Listing metrics

Dumping metrics

Getting metric value

Examples

Managing loggers

Listing loggers

Starting or pausing loggers

Cleaning or purging loggers

Removing a logger

Modifying a logger

Adding a logger

Examples

Using logger types

Listing types

Describing types

Examples

Managing listeners

Listing listeners

Enabling or disabling listeners

Auto listening

Examples

Getting DecaLog status

Managing main settings

Available settings

Example

Misc flags

Piping and storing

Contribution

Support & Help

DecaLog
Command Line Reference