Garbage in Apache log instead of IP address

"Weird characters" apache access_log "ip address"

[pc123]

Hi,

First post on this forum. I sometimes see in my Apache access logs weird characters instead of the IP address of the visitor. Here is a sample of what I get:

\x18_2\b@_2\b - - [09/Nov/2008:20:08:04 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
/index.html - - [09/Nov/2008:20:08:05 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
\xd0\xe5;\b - - [09/Nov/2008:20:10:10 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
\xd0\x98\r\b\x98\x9b\r\b - - [10/Nov/2008:10:58:14 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
\xe8C\x0c\b\xb0[\r\b8\\\r\b - - [10/Nov/2008:10:58:15 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
\x98=>\b\x04 - - [10/Nov/2008:10:58:15 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
\x90\xbe\n\b5.120\\>\b - - [10/Nov/2008:10:58:16 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
\x90\xbe\n\b22.20\\>\b - - [11/Nov/2008:07:07:04 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
\x90\\>\b\xa0A - - [11/Nov/2008:07:07:04 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
\x84 - - [11/Nov/2008:07:07:05 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
/index.html - - [11/Nov/2008:07:07:07 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
\x18_2\b@_2\b - - [11/Nov/2008:09:08:04 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"
/index.html - - [11/Nov/2008:09:08:04 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 493 "-" "-"

As you can see, the IP address is sometimes replaced by backslashes and the letter X+something, or sometimes by a URI (/index.html)

Any idea what's going on ?

Thank you.

[jdMorgan]

Did you set up this server yourself, or is this a server administrated by a hosting company? If the latter, I'd suggest contacting them, as this may be a problem with their "shared hosting log splitting script." If the former, the only thing I can thing of to try is to back up everything, then remove and re-install Apache, unless you know you are doing something "special" with your log files other than the Apache-straight-out-of-the-box installation.

Jim

[pc123]

Hi,

The Apache is on a server I installed myself, but it's an Apache that is bundled with Oracle, so I can't reinstall it from scratch without breaking my setup.

I will try to contact Oracle to seek help on that matter.

Thank you.