Nginx JSON Log Format Generator
Stop wrestling with manual string concatenation. Select the fields you need, and get a production-ready nginx.conf block that enables structured JSON logging.
log_format json_combined escape=json
'{'
'"timestamp": "$time_iso8601",'
...
'}';
Why use JSON logs with Nginx?
The default Nginx "Combined" format is hard to query programmatically. By switching to JSON, you can use modern tools to filter errors, calculate P95 latency, and group traffic by user agent.
How to use this config:
- Copy the generated block above.
- Paste it into the
http { ... }block of your/etc/nginx/nginx.conf. - Update your access_log directive:
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log json_combined; - Reload Nginx:
sudo nginx -s reload
⚡ Analyze these logs instantly
Once you have JSON logs, you don't need expensive SaaS tools to analyze them. LogLens is a CLI tool that parses this format automatically.
$ loglens stats describe access.log --field request_timeDownload LogLens CLI →