Knowledge Base

Plesk and/or websites are down after removing /var/log/ directory

The /var/log/ directory was cleaned up or removed.
All websites show the following message in the browser:
Site can't be reached
Plesk shows the next error:
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED
Plesk services are down:
# service sw-engine status
sw-engine-fpm is stopped
# service sw-cp-server status
sw-cp-serverd is stopped
Apache service is down and cannot be started with the following error
# service httpd start
Starting httpd: (2)No such file or directory: httpd: could not open error log file /etc/httpd/logs/error_log.
Unable to open logs
[FAILED]
Some folders are missing in the /var/log/ folder:
# ls -la /var/log/nginx
ls: cannot access /var/log/nginx: No such file or directory
# ls -la /var/log/sw-cp-server
ls: cannot access /var/log/sw-cp-server: No such file or directory
# ls -la /var/log/httpd
ls: cannot access /var/log/httpd: No such file or directory

Missing log directories prevent services to start correctly.

Connect to the server via SSH.
Try to start the corresponding services:
# service httpd start
# service sw-cp-server start
# service sw-engine start
# service nginx start
Depend on which service is failed to start, create the corresponding missing folder in the /var/log/ directory manually:
# mkdir -p /var/log/httpd
# mkdir -p /var/log/sw-cp-server
# mkdir -p /var/log/nginx
# mkdir -p /var/log/plesk-php73-fpm
# mkdir -p /var/log/plesk-php71-fpm
Start the corresponding services one more time:
# service httpd start
# service sw-cp-server start
# service sw-engine start
# service nginx start