Marcus Downing

<p>Enable system logging for WordPress plugin and theme development. This can make it easier to know what your code is doing.</p>
<p>Features include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Log to the system log or to a file</li>
<li>Easily append or embed any value in log messages</li>
<li>Coloured logs indicating strings, numbers, arrays, objects, null values etc.</li>
<li>Extract values from arrays of objects</li>
<li>Optionally exclude AJAX, Javascripts, CSS and any other pattern of URLs.</li>
<li>Intercept PHP errors and log strict warnings</li>
<li>Measure memory usage between two points, or the time taken by various parts of your code</li>
<li>Easy to switch off for production sites</li>
</ul>
<h4>How to use</h4>
<p>Using it is as simple as calling the <code>'log'</code> action in your templates or plugin.</p>
<pre><code><?php do_action('log', 'Some log message'); ?>
</code></pre>
<p>This will produce a line in your system log:</p>
<pre><code>Jun  4 11:23:08 myserver php/mysite.com[1553]: b8e mysite.com/path-to-page: Some log message
</code></pre>
<p>This includes:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>Jun  4 11:23:08</code> – The date and time of the log message</li>
<li><code>myserver</code> – The name of this computer</li>
<li><code>php</code> – The program that produced the message</li>
<li><code>mysite.com</code> – The domain name of the site</li>
<li><code>1553</code> – The process ID of the running PHP process</li>
<li><code>b8e</code> – A random 3-digit code identifying each page request</li>
<li><code>mysite.com/path-to-page</code> – The URL of the request</li>
<li><code>Some log message</code> – Your message</li>
</ul>
<p>For more detailed instructions, see the <strong>How to use</strong> tab.</p>
<h3>How to use</h3>
<p>To log a message, use the <code>'log'</code> action in your templates or plugins:</p>
<pre><code><?php do_action('log', 'Some log message'); ?>
</code></pre>
<p>This will output the log message:</p>
<pre><code>Some log message
</code></pre>
<h4>Embedding values</h4>
<p>If you include extra parameters, they’ll be added at the end of the log message:</p>
<pre><code><?php do_action('log', 'A number and a string', 17, 'foo'); ?>
</code></pre>
<p>This will produce the log message:</p>
<pre><code>A number and a string: 17, foo
</code></pre>
<p>The value will be formatted correctly depending on its type: integers, strings, arrays, objects, booleans etc.<br />
You don’t need to check if values are null or empty, they’ll still be output safely.</p>
<p>If you put the code <code>%s</code> into your log message, then one of the arguments will be dropped into the message:</p>
<pre><code><?php do_action('log', 'I have %s numbers', count($numbers), $numbers); ?>
</code></pre>
<p>This will produce the log message:</p>
<pre><code>I have 4 numbers: [9, 16, 307, 1]
</code></pre>
<h4>Selecting fields</h4>
<p>Logging a complete object – such as a WordPress post – can be very large, and sometimes it’s only one or two fields you need.<br />
If you put a string starting with an exclamation point <code>"!"</code> followed by a list of field names, they will be selected from the following object.<br />
The following will only show the <code>ID</code> and <code>post_title</code> fields of the post:</p>
<pre><code><?php do_action('log', 'Loaded the post', '!ID,post_title', $post); ?>
</code></pre>
<p>This will produce the log message:</p>
<pre><code>Loaded the post: {ID: 1932, post_title: Test page}
</code></pre>
<p>If you do this with an array of objects, those fields will be selected from each of them. The following will output a list of post <code>ID</code>s:</p>
<pre><code><?php do_action('log', 'Loaded %s posts', count($posts), '!ID', $posts); ?>
</code></pre>
<p>This will produce the log message:</p>
<pre><code>Loaded 3 posts: [1932, 1594, 1103]
</code></pre>
<h4>Coloured logs</h4>
<p>If you have coloured logging switched on, values will appear in different colours to indicate their type.<br />
This can make for quicker scanning of log files.<br />
To enable coloured logs, tick the <em>Coloured logs</em> checkbox on the settings page.<br />
Then use the <code>log.sh</code> script, included with this plugin, to decode and display the coloured log files.</p>


Bang System Logging

Enable system logging for WordPress plugin and theme development.

Blobfolio

<p>Jeepers Peepers provides an extensible interface for recording WordPress events — user logins, file uploads, post deletions, etc. — to a standard system log.</p>
<p>The resulting audit trail can then be incorporated into powerful log-monitoring tools like <a href="https://ossec.github.io/" rel="nofollow ugc">OSSEC</a> for pre-emptive protection and, in the unfortunate event of a hack, used as a vital reference in the post-mortem investigation.</p>
<p>The following events are automatically logged:</p>
<ul>
<li>Content: <code>wp_die()</code> triggered;</li>
<li>Content: attachment deleted;</li>
<li>Content: attachment sideloaded;</li>
<li>Content: attachment uploaded;</li>
<li>Content: post deleted;</li>
<li>Content: post published; </li>
<li>Network: GET, HEAD, POST, etc., requests;</li>
<li>Plugin: activated;</li>
<li>Plugin: deactivated;</li>
<li>Plugin: upgraded;</li>
<li>User: deleted;</li>
<li>User: login banned (via <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/apocalypse-meow/" rel="ugc">Apocalypse Meow</a>);</li>
<li>User: login failed;</li>
<li>User: login succeeded;</li>
<li>User: new user;</li>
<li>User: password reset;</li>
</ul>
<p>Each log entry records:</p>
<ul>
<li>UTC timestamp;</li>
<li>Severity level;</li>
<li>User IP address (or <code>127.0.0.1</code> if automated);</li>
<li>Logged in username (if applicable);</li>
<li>Event message;</li>
</ul>
<p>It will look something like this:</p>
<pre><code>WordPressAudit 2017-05-24 16:35:45 [warning] yourdomain.com 68.256.55.123 "tiffany" "Deactivated plugin: look-see-security-scanner"
</code></pre>
<h3>Requirements</h3>
<ul>
<li>WordPress 4.7 or later.</li>
<li>PHP 7.3 or later.</li>
<li>Linux host.</li>
<li>Single-site instance.</li>
<li>Log file must be writeable by WordPress.</li>
</ul>
<p>Please note: it is <strong>not safe</strong> to run WordPress atop a version of PHP that has reached its <a href="http://php.net/supported-versions.php" rel="nofollow ugc">End of Life</a>. Future releases of this plugin might, out of necessity, drop support for old, unmaintained versions of PHP. To ensure you continue to receive plugin updates, bug fixes, and new features, just make sure PHP is kept up-to-date. 🙂</p>
<h3>Privacy Policy</h3>
<p>Jeepers Peepers records CMS events such as post and plugin changes to a standard system log for security and audit purposes. Where possible, these entries include the public IP address and/or WordPress username of the individual responsible.</p>
<p>This plugin does not send any of this information to remote locations or third parties.</p>
<p>Please note: Jeepers Peepers <em>DOES NOT</em> integrate with any WordPress GDPR “Personal Data” features. (Selective erasure of audit logs would undermine the very purpose of this plugin! Haha.)</p>


Jeepers Peepers: WP Syslog

An extensible tool for recording WordPress events to a system log.

Bang System Logging vs Jeepers Peepers: WP Syslog