docs/engine/admin/logging/json-file.md

description	keywords	redirect_from	title
Describes how to use the json-file logging driver.	json-file, docker, logging, driver	/engine/reference/logging/json-file/	JSON File logging driver

By default, Docker captures the standard output (and standard error) of all your containers, and writes them in files using the JSON format. The JSON format annotates each line with its origin (stdout or stderr) and its timestamp. Each log file containers information about only one container.

Usage

Docker uses the JSON File logging driver by default. To explicitly set it, use the --log-driver and --log-opt flags when starting Docker:

dockerd
  -–log-driver json-file –-log-opt max-size=10m

To make the change persistent, configure it in /etc/docker/daemon.json:

{
  "log-driver": "json-file",
  "log-opts":  {
    "max-size": "10m"
  }
}

You can set the logging driver for a specific container by using the --log-driver flag to docker create or docker run:

$ docker run \
      -–log-driver json-file –-log-opt max-size=10m \
      alpine echo hello world

Options

The json-file logging driver supports the following logging options:

Option	Description	Example value
max-size	The maximum size of the log before it is rolled. A positive integer plus a modifier representing the unit of measure (k, m, or g).	--log-opt max-size=10m
max-file	The maximum number of log files that can be present. If rolling the logs creates excess files, the oldest file is removed. Only effective when max-size is also set. A positive integer.	--log-opt max-file=3
labels	Applies when starting the Docker daemon. A comma-separated list of logging-related labels this daemon will accept. Used for advanced log tag options.	--log-opt labels=production_status,geo
env	Applies when starting the Docker daemon. A comma-separated list of logging-related environment variables this daemon will accept. Used for advanced log tag options.	--log-opt env=os,customer

Note: If max-size and max-file are set, docker logs only returns the log lines from the newest log file.

Examples

This example starts an alpine container which can have a maximum of 3 log files no larger than 10 megabytes each.

$ docker run -it --log-opt max-size=10m --log-opt max-file=3 alpine ash