Apache HTTP Server Error & Access Logs (/var/log/apache2)

Bottom Line: It is 100% safe to truncate or compress old Apache log files. Clearing error.log and access.log archives will NOT bring down your Apache web server or affect hosted websites.

What are Apache Error & Access Logs?

Located at /var/log/apache2/ on Ubuntu/Debian (or /var/log/httpd/ on RHEL/CentOS), these text files are generated by the Apache HTTP Server.

Apache writes:

• access.log: Plain-text lines recording every HTTP request (IP address, user agent, requested URL, response status code).
• error.log: PHP errors, SSL handshake failures, and rewrite rule warnings.

On high-traffic Linux servers or sites targeted by web scrapers, Apache log files expand exponentially, growing to 10 GB to 50 GB+ and crashing servers due to full root partitions.

Can You Delete Apache Logs?

✅ Yes, it is safe to truncate.

• No downtime risk: Web sites and virtual hosts stay 100% online.
• Safety rule: Truncate log files using > or logrotate rather than rm so Apache doesn’t lose its open file descriptor.

How to Safely Clean Up Apache Logs

Method 1: Truncate Logs safely (Without Restarting Apache)

sudo truncate -s 0 /var/log/apache2/access.log
sudo truncate -s 0 /var/log/apache2/error.log

Method 2: Compress Old Logs with Logrotate

To enable automatic daily compression and deletion of 14-day-old logs, verify /etc/logrotate.d/apache2:

/var/log/apache2/*.log {
        daily
        missingok
        rotate 14
        compress
        delaycompress
        notifempty
}

Related Guides

• Learn about deleting Nginx proxy cache.
• How to clean up Linux /var/log.
• Check if you can clean journalctl logs.