Django Log Reader

Django Log Reader lets you read and download log files from the Django admin.

This is a maintained fork of imankarimi/django-log-reader with Django 6.0 support and modern packaging with PEP 621 and uv.

This project is designed for Linux and relies on standard Linux tools for fast logfile reads and search.

Requirements

• Python 3.8 or newer
• Django 3.2 through 6.0
• Linux environment for the command-line search path used by the app

Why Use It?

• Reading files based on Linux commands speeds up the display of file content
• Search in files based on Linux commands
• Download the result of the content
• Display files according to the pattern defined in settings.py
• Simple interface
• Easy integration

Search Notes

• grep -F: treat as baseline 1.0x
• rg -F: usually about the same to roughly 1.4x faster or slower depending on the case
• Python: often 50x to 100x+ slower

Concrete published numbers:

• On a 13.5 GB file: rg took 6.73 s and grep took 9.20 s, so rg was about 1.37x faster there. 1
• In a Python-vs-grep benchmark: grep took 0.196 s and Python took 25.067 s, so Python was about 128x slower there. 2

Practical guidance:

• For one huge logfile and a plain-text match, use grep -F or rg -F.
• If you want the safest conventional pick for raw single-file search, use grep -F 'ERROR' big.log.
• Do not use Python unless you need real parsing logic.

Installation

This fork is not published on PyPI. Install directly from GitHub:

$ pip install git+https://github.com/bp-ventures/django-log-reader.git
$ uv add git+https://github.com/bp-ventures/django-log-reader.git

Configuration

Add log_reader to INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    # ...
    "log_reader.apps.LogReaderConfig",
)

Optional settings:

# This value specifies the folder for the files. The default value is 'logs'
LOG_READER_DIR_PATH = 'logs'

# This value specifies the file extensions. The default value is '*.log'
LOG_READER_FILES_PATTERN = '*.log'

# This value specifies the default file. If there is no filter, the system reads the default file.
LOG_READER_DEFAULT_FILE = 'django.log'

# The contents of the files are separated based on this pattern.
LOG_READER_SPLIT_PATTERN = "\\n"

# This value indicates the number of lines of content in the file. Set the number of lines you want to read to this value.
LOG_READER_MAX_READ_LINES = 1000

# You can exclude files with this value.
LOG_READER_EXCLUDE_FILES = []

Collect static files in production:

$ python manage.py collectstatic

Clear your browser cache after setup.

Run

# Set up the database
$ python manage.py makemigrations
$ python manage.py migrate

# Create the superuser
$ python manage.py createsuperuser

# Start the application (development mode)
$ python manage.py runserver # default port 8000

Access the admin section in the browser at http://127.0.0.1:8000/.

Changelog

1.2.0

• Django 6.0 compatibility (is_composite_pk support)
• Fixed version detection to use django.VERSION tuple instead of string comparison
• Fixed grep -m argument splitting
• Added pyproject.toml for uv / PEP 621 packaging
• Removed MANIFEST.in (replaced by hatchling build backend)
• Added CI (GitHub Actions: tests + ruff across Python 3.10/3.12/3.13)
• Removed Python 2 leftovers (__future__ imports, (object) base classes)
• Updated classifiers for Django 3.2–6.0 and Python 3.8–3.13