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Adding information to the apache access logfile from within a cgi program

Sometimes you need to add some information to the apache logfile from a cgi-program/script.
One example for this: Your cgi has its own user authentication methods and you want the username in the access logfile.

First you have to change the cgi to print an additional header. In the example above this would be

X-Username:john

It is important to use a header beginning with X- so it doesn't interfer with any other header.

On apache side you have to modify your CustomLog directive to include the new header line into your logfile:

LogFormat "... %{X-Username}o ..." custom

Reload or restart apache and test it. Make sure your weblog anaylser is still able to parse the new logfiles.

Thanks to noodl and grbml from #apache on freenode for giving the right hints to do this.

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