Caddy reload fails 'permission denied' on access log file after running caddy validate as root
loading config: loading new config: setting up custom log 'log6': opening log writer using &logging.FileWriter{Filename:"/var/log/caddy/site-access.log"chown caddy:caddy /var/log/caddy/site-access.log
systemctl reload caddy
Or validate as the service user: sudo -u caddy caddy validate --config /etc/caddy/Caddyfile, or create the file with the right owner first.
Symptom
After adding a log { output file /var/log/caddy/site-access.log format json } block to a site in the Caddyfile and checking it with caddy validate (as root), systemctl reload caddy fails with a permission denied error opening the log file.
Cause
caddy validate provisions the config, which opens (and therefore creates) the log file — as root, mode 0600. The systemd service runs as the caddy user, which then cannot open the root-owned file.
Verify
After the chown, the reload succeeded and JSON access lines appeared in the file.
Notes
Before adding the log directive, neither the proxy nor the apps recorded requests; usage could only be partially reconstructed from Caddy error entries in journald (journalctl -u caddy -o cat). Add access logs on day one.
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