How to export the full access.log to host as file?

[Emporea]

I am using nginx-proxy (nginx + dockergen) and acme_companion.

docker logs nginx-proxy provides me with logs but its not only access log and only a limited amount of time.

How to export the full access.log to the host?

/var/log/nginx/access.log is just a symbolic link to /dev/stdout.

[SchoNie]

Make a bind mount from /var/log/nginx/ to a location on your host. Then the access.log is written to a persistent location.
Something like:

    volumes:
      - "./accesslogs/:/var/log/nginx/"

Be carefull that you need to do some kind of logrotation on the access.log/error.log else the file will grow indefinitely.

[Emporea]

Yes I know, and would use logration.

But your suggestion doesn't work.
Even on my host directory i can only see this

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   11 Aug 29 02:37 access.log -> /dev/stdout
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   11 Aug 29 02:37 error.log -> /dev/stderr

[SchoNie]

Do you have your full compose so I can recreate on my side?

[Emporea]

  proxy_nginx:
    container_name: proxy_nginx
    image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy:alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 80:80
      - 443:443
    volumes:
      - proxy_nginx_conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d
      - proxy_nginx_vhost:/etc/nginx/vhost.d
      - proxy_nginx_html:/usr/share/nginx/html
      - proxy_nginx_dhparam:/etc/nginx/dhparam
      - proxy_nginx_certs:/etc/nginx/certs:ro
      - proxy_nginx_logs:/var/log/nginx/ # this volume should be for the logs
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro

  proxy_acme:
    container_name: proxy_acme
    image: nginxproxy/acme-companion:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes_from:
      - proxy_nginx
    volumes:
      - proxy_nginx_certs:/etc/nginx/certs
      - proxy_nginx_acme:/etc/acme.sh
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
      
volumes:
  proxy_nginx_conf:
  proxy_nginx_vhost:
  proxy_nginx_html:
  proxy_nginx_dhparam:
  proxy_nginx_certs:
  proxy_nginx_acme:
  proxy_nginx_logs:

networks:
  default:
    external: true
    name: main

[SchoNie]

You do not have a bind mount but a volume. A volume is managed by Docker and normally it's content is not (directly) accessible on the host.
A bind mounts maps a specific folder on the host system to a folder in the docker container.

Change
- proxy_nginx_logs:/var/log/nginx/ # this volume should be for the logs to - ./accesslogs/:/var/log/nginx/
And comment or remove proxy_nginx_logs: in the volumes: section.

This should create a "accesslogs" folder in the folder containing the docker-compose file which is bind mounted to the accesslog folder in the container..
And that folder should then contain the accesslogs which you should do logrotation on.

[Emporea]

Wow.. good to know. stupid me thought they we equivalent..
Thank you!