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What is Google Cloud Logging?

Google Cloud Logging collects and stores logs from applications and services on the Google Cloud Platform:

The Logs List shows you some of the logs you can access.

Supported platforms

Cloud Logging gathers logs from many services, including:

  • Google App Engine. The pre-configured request_log records each frontend and backend request handled by your application. Cloud Logging also groups your application log entries with the appropriate requests.
  • Google Compute Engine. The pre-configured activity_log tracks changes to your project's Compute Engine resources. After you install the google-fluentd agent, many third-party logs on your instances can be streamed to Google Cloud Logging.

Cloud Logging concepts

A log type is a particular kind of log, such as the App Engine request_log, an operating system's syslog, or the Apache Web Server's apache-error. Some log types are defined by Cloud Logging and others are custom log types produced by third party software or created by your own applications.

A log or log stream is the set of all log entries of a particular log type that belong to your project. For example, if you have 100 application instances running on App Engine, then the request log stream will consist of request log entries from all 100 instances, combined into one log that you see in the Logs Viewer or in your exported log destination.

Cloud Logging saves metadata with every log entry so that you can tell when the log entry was created, from what resource or instance it came, what its severity level is, and so forth. The log entry's original content, or payload, might be saved as a text string or as a structured object, depending on the log type.

Access control

You control who can access your logs by setting project member permissions. See Permissions in the Developers Console:

  • Project members with "Can view" access can list logs and read log entries.
  • Project members with "Can edit" access can both view and write log entries.
  • Project members with "Owner" access can additionally configure log export.

Next Steps

See Getting Started to learn how to set up Cloud Logging and how to export logs to Cloud Storage and BigQuery.

See Viewing Logs to learn how to view your logs in the Logs Viewer and how to use your exported logs.

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