Create logfile at startup

[ne20002]

This PR is opened as draft pull request as it may need some discussion and a bit more testing.

As described in #friendica/friendica#15001 the log file is not creatd by friendica when logging is enabled. This PR is an attempt to fix this.

I only had time to test this with the fpm image (which is debian based).

My concerns are:

• I don't want to just create an empty log file with the current default (which is /var/www/html/friendica.log) as its location in /var/www/html is not really a good idea. I would vote for /var/log/friendica.log as a default.
• To make use of FRIENDICA_LOGFILE requires to check for the correct permission on the folder from the entrypoint.sh script. To do so I needed to add sudo to the installed packages (not really a security issue but not best practice).
• I haven't tested with Alpine (not sure if Alpine suports sudo out of the box).
• The correct solution would be that Friendica itself creates the file upon start or when enabled/changed in the UI. It seems as if it honors the location from then environment variable (which is good).

[ne20002]

I believe there is no elegant way to create the logfile with the docker image.
The possible options left are:

• just create an empty friendica.log file in /var/www/html in Dockerfile as this is the logfile default and it would by placed in a writable volume

For using Docker usually users would mount the log file and if so, the logfile needs to exist anyway.
In all other cases I believe the underlying problem should be fixed in Friendica.

@mfxa, @nupplaphil: do you agree?

[marcusxss]

For some reason i can't make a direct comment on your new "comment", so responding here instead:

I believe there is no elegant way to create the logfile with the docker image. The possible options left are:

* just create an empty friendica.log file in /var/www/html in Dockerfile as this is the logfile default and it would by placed in a writable volume

For using Docker usually users would mount the log file and if so, the logfile needs to exist anyway. In all other cases I believe the underlying problem should be fixed in Friendica.

@mfxa, @nupplaphil: do you agree?

I think it sounds like a better idea to create it in the Dockerfile, yes. Good idea.
Better to move as much as possible to build time, and then it only needs to be done in one place.

[ne20002]

I will change the approach to what seems to be a good practice and

• create symlink from /var/log/friendica.log to stdout
• set /var/log/friendica.log as default in config.php

This would allow to read the log with the Docker log handling by default. It is still possible to mount a file to /var/log/friendica.log or a folder to /var/log/.

And existing installations should not be affected (if their config is stored in the database).

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR addresses issue #15001 where Friendica does not create its log file when logging is enabled. The solution changes the default log file location from /var/www/html/friendica.log to /var/log/friendica.log and creates a symbolic link to /dev/stdout, following Docker logging best practices.

Changes:

• Updated default logfile path from /var/www/html/friendica.log to /var/log/friendica.log in all Docker configuration files
• Added symlink creation from /var/log/friendica.log to /dev/stdout in all Dockerfiles to redirect logs to Docker's logging system
• Applied changes consistently across all variants (apache, fpm, fpm-alpine) and versions (2024.12, 2026.01, 2026.04-dev)

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 21 out of 21 changed files in this pull request and generated 12 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
Dockerfile-debian.template	Template file: Added symlink creation for Debian-based variants
Dockerfile-alpine.template	Template file: Added symlink creation for Alpine-based variants
.config/zz-docker.config.php	Template config: Changed logfile path to /var/log/friendica.log
2026.04-dev/fpm/Dockerfile	Development FPM variant: Added symlink to stdout
2026.04-dev/fpm/config/zz-docker.config.php	Development FPM config: Updated logfile path
2026.04-dev/fpm-alpine/Dockerfile	Development FPM Alpine variant: Added symlink to stdout
2026.04-dev/fpm-alpine/config/zz-docker.config.php	Development FPM Alpine config: Updated logfile path
2026.04-dev/apache/Dockerfile	Development Apache variant: Added symlink to stdout
2026.04-dev/apache/config/zz-docker.config.php	Development Apache config: Updated logfile path
2026.01/fpm/Dockerfile	Release 2026.01 FPM variant: Added symlink to stdout
2026.01/fpm/config/zz-docker.config.php	Release 2026.01 FPM config: Updated logfile path
2026.01/fpm-alpine/Dockerfile	Release 2026.01 FPM Alpine variant: Added symlink to stdout
2026.01/fpm-alpine/config/zz-docker.config.php	Release 2026.01 FPM Alpine config: Updated logfile path
2026.01/apache/Dockerfile	Release 2026.01 Apache variant: Added symlink to stdout
2026.01/apache/config/zz-docker.config.php	Release 2026.01 Apache config: Updated logfile path
2024.12/fpm/Dockerfile	Release 2024.12 FPM variant: Added symlink to stdout
2024.12/fpm/config/zz-docker.config.php	Release 2024.12 FPM config: Updated logfile path
2024.12/fpm-alpine/Dockerfile	Release 2024.12 FPM Alpine variant: Added symlink to stdout
2024.12/fpm-alpine/config/zz-docker.config.php	Release 2024.12 FPM Alpine config: Updated logfile path
2024.12/apache/Dockerfile	Release 2024.12 Apache variant: Added symlink to stdout
2024.12/apache/config/zz-docker.config.php	Release 2024.12 Apache config: Updated logfile path

---

💡 Add Copilot custom instructions for smarter, more guided reviews. Learn how to get started.

[nupplaphil]

Why not setting to syslog so there won't be a logfile? There's a env for switching it

[ne20002]

Actually it is best practice. It is not recommended to log to syslog, journal or a log file inside the container as this log would be gone when the container is stopped.
Docker picks up the stdout and stderr from inside the container. It can then be configured using Docker log drivers how to store them on the host.
With this approach it is still possible to mount a log file into the container (some people prefer this).

[nupplaphil]

I see, maybe some kind of doc but the rest seems fine