Having the right tool for the right job is important. Pulling down a text file of raw logs is not my idea of a cool glass of wine and an easy chair to read it in. As the administrator of your site, you need to have tools and (of course) processes in place to monitor your log files on a regular basis.

Here are a few of my favorites and, depending on your host, you might have some of them.

We'll start out with discussing a few Joomla!-based tools. Then we'll look at several tools that are generally available from most hosts, often available through the cPanel or other equivalent tools.

Let's examine these tools.