Developers guide

Chapter 5

Configuration 34

Log files

Here are the most important PacketFence log files:

/usr/local/pf/logs/packetfence.log PacketFence Core Log

/usr/local/pf/logs/portal_access_log Apache – Captive Portal Access Log

/usr/local/pf/logs/portal_error_log Apache – Captive Portal Error Log

/usr/local/pf/logs/admin_access_log Apache – Web Admin/Services Access Log

/usr/local/pf/logs/admin_error_log Apache – Web Admin/Services Error Log

/usr/local/pf/logs/admin_debug_log Apache – Web Admin Debug Log

/usr/local/pf/logs/webservices_access_log Apache – Webservices Access Log

/usr/local/pf/logs/webservices_error_log Apache – Webservices Error Log

There are other log files in /usr/local/pf/logs/ that could be relevant depending on what issue you

are experiencing. Make sure you take a look at them.

The logging system’s configuration file is /usr/local/pf/conf/log.conf. It contains the configuration

for the packetfence.log file (Log::Log4Perl) and you normally don’t need to modify it.

Passthrough

In order to use the passthrough feature in PacketFence, you need to enable it from the GUI in Configuration

� Trapping and check Passthrough.

There are two solutions for passthroughs - one using DNS resolution and iptables and the other one using

Apache’s mod_proxy module. When enabled, PacketFence will use pfdns if you defined Passthroughs, or

Apache mod-proxy if you defined Proxy Passthroughs to allow trapped devices to reach web sites.

*DNS passthrough: Add a new FQDN (should be a wildcard domain like *.google.com) in the Passthroughs

section. When PacketFence receives a DNS request for this domain, it will answer the real IP address and

punch a hole in the firewall (using iptables) to allow access. With this method, PacketFence must be the

default gateway of your device.

*mod_proxy passthrough: Add a new FQDN (should be a wildcard domain like *.google.com) in the Proxy

Passthroughs section. For this FQDN, PacketFence will answer the IP address of the captive portal and when

a device hits the captive portal, PacketFence will detect that this FQDN has a passthrough configuration

and will forward the traffic to mod_proxy.

These two methods can be used together but DNS-based passthroughs have higher priority.