How to disable Nginx logging?

I have the following in config file

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  _;
    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;
  ...

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  example.com
    access_log  off;
    error_log off;

But it is still keep logging for example.com virtual host. What am I doing wrong?

Solution 1:

You are missing ; after server_name directive. access_log and off are being treated as additional server_names.

Solution 2:

Of course you can completely disable logging. Just point the logfiles to /dev/null and be done. ;)

access_log  /dev/null;
error_log /dev/null;

Solution 3:

you can disable access_log by using

access_log off;

but if you want to disable error_log, just don't use error_log option in your conf.

Solution 4:

OP's problem was a syntax error, which is explained in this answer.

As of January 2020, with nginx 1.14.0+ the general problem of disabling access and error logging in nginx is solved as follows:

Access logs

To disable logs on some configuration level, assuming that it has been explicitly enabled on a higher one or are enabled by default (as they are), use this directive*:

access_log off;

(Answers saying that you should redirect this kind of logs to /dev/null are outdated.)

Note that the access_log directive may be set multiple times on a single level but the above entry disables all access log logging on the current level.

Source: nginx docs for access_log

Error logs

Disabling error logs is more tricky as there is NO explicit option to turn it off on a lower configuration level, if it has been enabled on a higher one or it is enabled by default (as it is)!

So in this case you should use what this answer proposed:

error_log /dev/null;

Source: nginx docs for error_log

Caveats

Imagine that you have a single http with access log enabled on this level, and inside multiple server entries and one of these servers is an entry point to all others. Let's say you have one server with SSL configured that listens for connections from outside with HTTPS and it redirects them to other servers which are various API gateways.

Then it's not enough to disable access logs in some of the API gateway servers (or their locations) as the request will be still logged in the access log of the external HTTPS server.

Bad example:

http {
  access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;

  server {
    listen 80;
    location /app1 {
      proxy_pass http://localhost:81;
    }
    (...)
  }

  server {
    listen 81;
    access_log off; # <----- this WON'T effectively work - requests will be logged in the access log by the server above
    (...)
  }
  (...)
}

You would have to disable access logs on the whole paths of given requests to make it work in this case. But of course a better solution would be to consider simplifying your config as you may run into many more surprises even after you solve the problem with access logs...

Simpler config example:

http {
  access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;

  server {
    listen 80;
    location /app1 {
      access_log off; # <----- this WILL work
      proxy_pass http://app1server;
    }
    (...)
  }

}