A way to set motion to log to stdout

[GamePlayer-8]

Hello,

Would it be possible to set the motion logging path from /var/log/motioneye/motion.log to /dev/stdout?
Currently the filename within the logging path seems to be hardened:

motioneye/motioneye/motionctl.py

Line 101 in 358fb6d

motion_log_path = os.path.join(settings.LOG_PATH, 'motion.log')

[MichaIng]

motionEye has a --log-to-file CLI option, it seems, which is not documented anywhere and disabled by default, unless it is started in daemon mode (which is not the case with systemd): https://github.com/motioneye-project/motioneye/blob/main/motioneye/server.py#L491-L493

I think the cleanest would be to add this to https://github.com/motioneye-project/motioneye/blob/main/motioneye/settings.py and https://github.com/motioneye-project/motioneye/blob/main/motioneye/extra/motioneye.conf.sample, overridden by CLI. Then motionctl could respect that, and log to the file only if requested.

Since there is the log_path setting, no real reason to add an explicit file path setting. But it would need to be made clear that this has an effect only, if file logging is generally enabled.

I guess we'd need to reduce the motion log level as well. It does respect the log level setting, but to me it looks like it is always more verbose than motionEye, probably because it always logs to a file anyway. Aside of STDERR, which lands in motionEye STDOUT as well, though I fail to see the reason at the moment.

[GamePlayer-8]

Thank you for the reply, I have tried to add --log-to-file to the startup arguments in the entrypoint.sh file:

motioneye/docker/entrypoint.sh

Line 6 in 358fb6d

exec su -g motion motion -s /bin/dash -c "LANGUAGE=en exec /usr/local/bin/meyectl startserver -c /etc/motioneye/motioneye.conf"

but unfortunately only the -l argument worked and it started logging the motioneye stdout into a file /var/log/motioneye/motioneye.log. I wasn't been able to specify the filename of the log file other than motioneye.log, let alone for motion.log.

[MichaIng]

Yes as said, we would need to properly implement this option to have an effect on motion.log as well. And as said as well: use log_path (in motioneye.conf) to change the log file directory (assuming there is no reason to change the name).

[Marijn0]

AFAIK, you can specify the log directory and filename for the Motion application in motion.conf if that is your goal:

https://motion-project.github.io/motion_config.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com#log_file

[MichaIng]

But motionEye still explicitly attaches motion's STDOUT and STDERR to <log_path>/motion.log, so that would just add another log file on top.