The first place you should go when trying to debug a problem is the log file for that program. The list of Log Files are as follows:
DirectAdmin:
/var/log/directadmin/error.log
/var/log/directadmin/errortaskq.log
/var/log/directadmin/system.log
/var/log/directadmin/security.log
Apache:
/var/log/httpd/error_log
/var/log/httpd/access_log
/var/log/httpd/suexec_log
/var/log/httpd/fpexec_log
/var/log/httpd/domains/domain.com.error.log
/var/log/httpd/domains/domain.com.log
/var/log/messages (generic errors)
Proftpd:
/var/log/proftpd/access.log
/var/log/proftpd/auth.log
/var/log/messages (generic errors)
vm-pop3d:
/var/log/maillog
/var/log/messages
named (bind):
/var/log/messages
exim:
/var/log/exim/mainlog
/var/log/exim/paniclog
/var/log/exim/processlog
/var/log/exim/rejectlog
(on FreeBSD, they have “exim_” in front of the filenames)
mysqld:
RedHat:
/var/lib/mysql/server.hostname.com.err
FreeBSD:
/usr/local/mysql/data/server.hostname.com.err
crond: /var/log/cron
To view a log file, run:
less /var/log/filename
Where /var/log/filename is the path of the log you wish to view. If the log is too large you can use the “tail” command:
tail -n 30 /var/log/filename