admin_audit_http_client

Nextcloud app that logs all outgoing HTTP requests made by Nextcloud's built-in HTTP client (OC\Http\Client\Client, Guzzle-based).

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Important

This app is in early development. It is not available in the Nextcloud App Store — installation is manual only. It has no built-in log rotation yet. Monitor log file sizes and rotate manually or via the system's logrotate daemon until log rotation is implemented.

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Configuration (config/config.php)

All settings are optional.

logdir_audit_http_client

Explicit override for the log directory. Takes precedence over everything else.

'logdir_audit_http_client' => '/var/log/nextcloud/http_client',

If this key is absent, the log directory is derived automatically:

• If logfile_audit is set and points outside datadirectory: logs go into a client/ subdirectory next to the audit log.
• Else if logfile is set and points outside datadirectory: logs go into a client/ subdirectory next to the main log.
• Otherwise: <datadirectory>/admin_audit_http_client_logs/

The directory is created automatically on first use.

loglevel_audit_http_client

Controls which responses are logged. Default: 0.

Value	Logs
0	all requests
1	HTTP 400+ only
2	HTTP 500+ only

Network errors (connection failures, DNS failures, etc.) are always logged regardless of this setting.

'loglevel_audit_http_client' => 1,

audit_http_client_logs

Selects the log output format. Default: 'both'.

Value	Output
'json'	<host>.json — one JSON object per line
'plain'	<host>.log — one plain-text line per request
'both'	both files

Plain-text example:

a3f9bc 2026-05-05T14:23:01+00:00 GET https://example.com/feed HTTP/2 200 compressed=4821 decompressed=18944 ratio=0.25 encoding=br Hdrs=Host,Accept-Encoding,User-Agent "Nextcloud/32 ..."

'audit_http_client_logs' => 'json',

audit_http_client_logs_exclude_domain

List of hostnames to exclude from logging. Requests to matching hosts are passed through without any log entry. Matching is case-insensitive. Wildcard prefix (*.example.com) is supported and also matches the bare domain (example.com). Default: [].

'audit_http_client_logs_exclude_domain' => [
    'apps.nextcloud.com',
    'updates.nextcloud.com',
    '*.googleapis.com',
],

Installation

No npm, no composer, no build step required.

Note

Installation is typically done as root or a privileged user, not as the web server user itself. After installing, set ownership to match your web server user:

Distribution	Web server user
Debian / Ubuntu	www-data
CentOS / RHEL / Fedora (Apache)	apache
CentOS / RHEL / Fedora (nginx)	nginx
Arch Linux	http

From a release tarball (recommended)

Download the latest release from the Releases page:

• Installation script

  TAG=v0.2.0
  NCDIR=/path/to/nextcloud
  HTUSER=www-data
  cd ${NCDIR}/apps
  sudo curl -L https://github.com/ernolf/admin_audit_http_client/releases/download/${TAG}/admin_audit_http_client-${TAG}.tar.gz | sudo tar -xz
  sudo chown -R ${HTUSER}: admin_audit_http_client
  sudo -u ${HTUSER} php ${NCDIR}/occ app:enable admin_audit_http_client

Via git clone (development / always latest)

• Installation script

  NCDIR=/path/to/nextcloud
  HTUSER=www-data
  cd ${NCDIR}/apps
  git clone https://github.com/ernolf/admin_audit_http_client.git
  sudo chown -R ${HTUSER}: admin_audit_http_client
  sudo -u ${HTUSER} php ${NCDIR}/occ app:enable admin_audit_http_client

Update

Remove the old directory and reinstall — this avoids leftover files from previous versions.

From a release tarball:

• Update script

  TAG=v0.2.0
  NCDIR=/path/to/nextcloud
  HTUSER=www-data
  cd ${NCDIR}/apps
  sudo -u ${HTUSER} php ${NCDIR}/occ app:disable admin_audit_http_client
  sudo rm -rf admin_audit_http_client
  sudo curl -L https://github.com/ernolf/admin_audit_http_client/releases/download/${TAG}/admin_audit_http_client-${TAG}.tar.gz | sudo tar -xz
  sudo chown -R ${HTUSER}: admin_audit_http_client
  sudo -u ${HTUSER} php ${NCDIR}/occ app:enable admin_audit_http_client

Via git clone:

• Update script

  NCDIR=/path/to/nextcloud
  HTUSER=www-data
  cd ${NCDIR}/apps
  sudo -u ${HTUSER} php ${NCDIR}/occ app:disable admin_audit_http_client
  sudo rm -rf admin_audit_http_client
  git clone https://github.com/ernolf/admin_audit_http_client.git
  sudo chown -R ${HTUSER}: admin_audit_http_client
  sudo -u ${HTUSER} php ${NCDIR}/occ app:enable admin_audit_http_client

Roadmap

Architecture, data flow, planned features, and configuration options are documented in the Architecture & Roadmap.

Credits

• Author & Maintainer: [ernolf] Raphael Gradenwitz

License

AGPL-3.0-or-later