Site Health false positive: WP_DEBUG_LOG warning when debug.log is outside wp-content - Ticket #64071

[hbhalodia]

Trac ticket: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/64071

Screenshots

Publicly accessible	Not Publicly Accessible

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[github-actions]

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Props hbhalodia, westonruter, mukesh27.

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[hbhalodia]

Hi Team, Can you please help review and update the wordings if needed?

Thank You,

[github-actions]

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[westonruter]

If we wanted to go the extra mile, there could be a loopback request to try to actually request the file over HTTP to see if it returns anything. This may not be helpful in the end, however, as the file may not be present if nothing has been written to the log yet. Just an idea.

[hbhalodia]

If we wanted to go the extra mile, there could be a loopback request to try to actually request the file over HTTP to see if it returns anything. This may not be helpful in the end, however, as the file may not be present if nothing has been written to the log yet. Just an idea.

Thanks @westonruter, I thought of an edge case as well, what if there is no any log file present, then realpath will return false, and since we are checking a condition out there related if both the paths are present and if that is public path, then only to consider it as the debugging log is present in public directory, else we can show what we are showing.

[westonruter]

I thought of an edge case as well, what if there is no any log file present, then realpath will return false, and since we are checking a condition out there related if both the paths are present and if that is public path, then only to consider it as the debugging log is present in public directory, else we can show what we are showing.

Good point. Well, in that case you could always check to see if ini_get( 'error_log' ) === WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/debug.log' in case the realpath() returns false. This will catch the default case when someone uses the default when setting WP_DEBUG_LOG to true:

wordpress-develop/src/wp-includes/load.php

Lines 622 to 623 in 5a53b94

	if ( in_array( strtolower( (string) WP_DEBUG_LOG ), array( 'true', '1' ), true ) ) {
	$log_path = WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/debug.log';

If, however, they do something like:

define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG`, ABSPATH . 'debug.log' );

Then checking WP_DEBUG_LOG could fail if no logs have been written yet. In that case, if realpath() returns false, then actually there isn't a need to check realpath() on the full error log. All we need to do is check the path to the directory because that's not something which would be automatically created when a new error log entry is written. So I think this can be simplified by turning $debug_log_path = realpath( $debug_log_path ); into $debug_log_path = realpath( dirname( $debug_log_path ) ) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR;

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR fixes a false positive in WordPress Site Health where a warning about WP_DEBUG_LOG being set to a potentially public file is shown even when the debug log is configured to be outside the wp-content directory (and thus not publicly accessible).

Changes:

• Modified the debug mode check to determine if error log files are within or outside the WordPress document root
• Added different status levels (critical vs good) and messages based on whether the log file is publicly accessible
• Differentiated messaging between WP_DEBUG_LOG constant usage and direct PHP error_log configuration

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[Copilot]

The variable name $is_public_log is misleading when it's false. A value of false could mean either "the log is not public" (which is good) or "we couldn't determine the path" (which is an error). Consider renaming or restructuring to make the distinction clearer, or handle the error case explicitly.

[hbhalodia]

Implemented as below,

$log_path_status = 'private';

if ( false === $debug_log_path ) {
	$log_path_status = 'error';
} elseif ( str_starts_with( $debug_log_path . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, $absolute_path ) ) {
	$log_path_status = 'public';
}

$is_wp_debug_log = defined( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG' ) && WP_DEBUG_LOG;

if ( $log_path_status === 'public' ) {
	$result['label']  = __( 'Your site is set to log errors to a potentially public file' );
	$result['status'] = 'critical';
} elseif ( $log_path_status === 'private' ) {
	$result['label']  = __( 'Your site is set to log errors to a file outside the document root' );
	$result['status'] = 'good';
} else {
	$result['label']  = __( 'Unable to determine error log file location' );
	$result['status'] = 'critical';
}

Update the $result['description'] based on the $log_path_status as below,

if ( $is_wp_debug_log ) {
	$result['description'] .= sprintf(
		'<p>%s</p>',
		sprintf(
			/* translators: %s: WP_DEBUG_LOG */
			$log_path_status === 'public'
				? __( 'The constant, %s, has been added to this website&#8217;s configuration file. This means any errors on the site will be written to a file which is likely publicly accessible.' )
				: ( $log_path_status === 'private'
					? __( 'The configuration constant, %s, is enabled. In addition, your site is set to write errors to a file outside the WordPress directory, which is a good practice as the log file should not be publicly accessible.' )
					: __( 'The configuration constant, %s, is enabled, but the log file location could not be determined.' )
				),
			'<code>WP_DEBUG_LOG</code>'
		)
	);
} else {
	$result['description'] .= sprintf(
		'<p>%s</p>',
		$log_path_status === 'public'
			? __( 'The error log path has been configured to a file within your WordPress directory. This means any errors on the site will be written to a file which is likely publicly accessible.' )
			: ( $log_path_status === 'private'
				? __( 'The error log path has been configured to a file outside your WordPress directory. This is a good practice as the log file should not be publicly accessible.' )
				: __( 'The error log path could not be determined. Please check your PHP configuration.' )
			)
	);
}

[westonruter]

@hbhalodia Could the setting of the $result['description'] be moved up to the existing if/elseif/else for $log_path_status? This would ensure there is only one set of conditions, and it would address the nested ternary feedback from Copilot in #10684 (comment)

[hbhalodia]

Sure would update it.

[hbhalodia]

This is now moved to if/elseif/else condition. But we have to check for $is_wp_debug_log constant being set or not. So it would be something like below,

if ( 'public' === $log_path_status ) {
	$result['label']  = __( 'Your site is set to log errors to a potentially public file' );
	$result['status'] = 'critical';

	if ( $is_wp_debug_log ) {
		$result['description'] .= sprintf(
			'<p>%s</p>',
			sprintf(
				/* translators: %s: WP_DEBUG_LOG */
				__( 'The constant, %s, has been added to this website&#8217;s configuration file. This means any errors on the site will be written to a file which is likely publicly accessible.' ),
				'<code>WP_DEBUG_LOG</code>'
			)
		);
	} else {
		$result['description'] .= sprintf(
			'<p>%s</p>',
			__( 'The error log path has been configured to a file within the WordPress directory. This means any errors on the site will be written to a file which is likely publicly accessible.' )
		);
	}
} elseif ( 'private' === $log_path_status ) {
	$result['label']  = __( 'Your site is set to log errors to a file outside the document root' );
	$result['status'] = 'good';

	if ( $is_wp_debug_log ) {
		$result['description'] .= sprintf(
			'<p>%s</p>',
			sprintf(
				/* translators: %s: WP_DEBUG_LOG */
				__( 'The configuration constant, %s, is enabled. In addition, your site is set to write errors to a file outside the WordPress directory, which is a good practice as the log file should not be publicly accessible.' ),
				'<code>WP_DEBUG_LOG</code>'
			)
		);
	} else {
		$result['description'] .= sprintf(
			'<p>%s</p>',
			__( 'The error log path has been configured to a file outside the WordPress directory. This is a good practice as the log file should not be publicly accessible.' )
		);
	}
} else {
	$result['label']  = __( 'Unable to determine error log file location' );
	$result['status'] = 'critical';

	if ( $is_wp_debug_log ) {
		$result['description'] .= sprintf(
			'<p>%s</p>',
			sprintf(
				/* translators: %s: WP_DEBUG_LOG */
				__( 'The configuration constant, %s, is enabled, but the log file location could not be determined.' ),
				'<code>WP_DEBUG_LOG</code>'
			)
		);
	} else {
		$result['description'] .= sprintf(
			'<p>%s</p>',
			__( 'The error log path could not be determined. Please check your PHP configuration.' )
		);
	}
}

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 1 out of 1 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.

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