View proxy transaction logs

Proxy transaction logs provide detailed information about each request that Secure Web Proxy processes. These logs include a record of every transaction that Secure Web Proxy mediates between users and the internet. This document explains how to access and interpret the transaction logs that your Secure Web Proxy instances generate.

Types of proxy transaction log entries

Proxy transaction log entries are of three types:

These logs are useful for the following actions:

  • Security analysis and threat detection
  • Troubleshooting connectivity and policy issues
  • Auditing web access
  • Secure Web Proxy performance analysis

HttpRequest

These log entries contain the following information:

Name Type Description
requestMethod String Type of request method, such as GET, HEAD, PUT, or POST.
requestUrl String Scheme (http or https), hostname, path, and the query portion of the requested URL. For example, http://example.com/some/info?color=red.
requestSize

String (int64 format)

 Size, in bytes, of the HTTP request message, including the request headers and request body.
status Integer HTTP or HTTPS status code that indicates the response. For example, 200 OK or 404 Not Found.
responseSize String (int64 format) Size, in bytes, of the HTTP status code that's sent back to the client, including the headers and body.
userAgent String User agent that the client sends, such as Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705).
remoteIp String IP address (IPv4 or IPv6) of the client that issued the HTTP request. This field can include port information. For example, 192.168.1.1, 10.0.0.1:80, and FE80::0202:B3FF:FE1E:8329.
serverIp String IP address (IPv4 or IPv6) of the origin server to which the request was sent. This field can include port information. For example, 192.168.1.1, 10.0.0.1:80, and FE80::0202:B3FF:FE1E:8329.
referrer String Referrer URL of the request, as defined in HTTP/1.1 Header Field Definitions.
latency String (Duration format) Request processing latency on the server, from the time the request was received until the response was sent.

Latency is a duration in seconds with up to nine fractional digits and ends with s, such as 3.5s.
cacheLookup Boolean Indicates whether a cache lookup was attempted.
cacheHit Boolean Indicates whether an entity was served from the cache (with or without validation).
cacheValidatedWithOriginServer Boolean Indicates whether the response was validated with the origin server before being served from the cache. This field is meaningful only if cacheHit is True.
cacheFillBytes String (int64 format) Number of HTTP status code bytes that are inserted.
protocol String Protocol used for the request, such as HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, and websocket.

LoadBalancerLogEntry

These log entries contain the following information:

Name Type Description
insertId String Unique log ID.
jsonPayload.@type String Log type. The log type value is always type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.loadbalancing.type.LoadBalancerLogEntry.
jsonPayload.enforcedGatewaySecurityPolicy.hostname String Hostname associated with the request.
jsonPayload.enforcedGatewaySecurityPolicy.matchedRules.action String Action taken on the request.
jsonPayload.enforcedGatewaySecurityPolicy.matchedRules.rule String Name of the rule applied to the request.
jsonPayload.enforcedGatewaySecurityPolicy.clientServiceAccount String Service account associated with the request.
jsonPayload.enforcedGatewaySecurityPolicy.clientSecureTags String Secure tags associated with the request.

GatewayLogEntry

These log entries contain the following information:

Name Type Description
resource_container String Container associated with the gateway.
location String Name of the region in which the gateway is defined.
network_name String Name of the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network in which the gateway was created.
gateway_type String Enum type of the gateway. For Secure Web Proxy, the value must be SECURE_WEB_GATEWAY.
gateway_name String Name of the gateway resource.

Format of proxy transaction logs

Proxy transaction logs are written to Cloud Logging with the log name as projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/networkservices.googleapis.com%2Fgateway_requests.

The JSON payload of each log entry contains detailed information about the transaction. Log entries contain the following key fields:

Name Type Description
destination_ip String Resolved IP address of the destination.
instance String Name of the Secure Web Proxy instance that processed the request.
mtls_info Object Information about the mTLS handshake, if applicable.
policy_evaluation_results Object Information about which rules were matched and the resulting action, such as allow or deny.
request_host String Requested hostname.
request_method String HTTP method, such as GET or POST.
request_path String Path of the request.
request_port Integer Destination port.
request_protocol String HTTP protocol version.
request_scheme String Scheme of the URL request, such as http or https.
request_time Timestamp Date and time at which the proxy received the request. The timestamp is specified in ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.MsMsMsZoneOffset. For example, 2025-06-03T11:52:26.452Z.
response_code Integer HTTP status code that's returned to the client.
response_size Integer Size of the response body, measured in bytes.
response_time Timestamp Date and time at which the proxy sent the response to the client. The timestamp is specified in ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.MsMsMsZoneOffset. For example, 2025-06-03T11:52:26.452Z.
source_ip String Client IP address.
source_port Integer Client source port.
tls_cipher_suite String Cipher suite used for the TLS connection.
tls_version String TLS version used for the connection.

Monitor proxy transaction logs

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Logs Explorer page.

    Go to Logs Explorer

  2. Select your Google Cloud project.

  3. Use the following query to view all Secure Web Proxy transaction logs:

    logName="projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/networkservices.googleapis.com%2Fgateway_requests"

    Replace PROJECT_ID with the ID of your target Google Cloud project.

    Here are a few sample queries that you can use to view specific details:

    • Find all denied requests.

      logName="projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/networkservices.googleapis.com%2Fgateway_requests"
jsonPayload.policy_evaluation_results.policy_action="DENY"

    • Find requests from a specific source IP address.

      logName="projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/networkservices.googleapis.com%2Fgateway_requests"
jsonPayload.source_ip="192.0.2.1"

    • Find requests to a specific host.

      logName="projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/networkservices.googleapis.com%2Fgateway_requests"
jsonPayload.request_host="example.com"

Correlate proxy transaction logs with Cloud Trace

When distributed tracing is enabled on your Secure Web Proxy gateway, you can correlate proxy transaction log entries with trace spans in Trace by following these steps:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Logs Explorer page.

    Go to Logs Explorer

  2. Expand any gateway_requests log entry.

  3. Locate the top-level trace field: 

      projects/PROJECT_ID/traces/TRACE_ID

    Replace the following:

    • PROJECT_ID: ID of your Google Cloud project
    • TRACE_ID: 128-bit (32-character hexadecimal) trace ID from your client or trace span. For example, 4bf92f3577b34da6a3ce929d0e0e4736.

  4. Click the trace URL, and then select View trace details to directly navigate to the trace waterfall in Cloud Trace.

  5. To filter logs for a known trace ID from an OpenTelemetry-instrumented client, run the following query in Logs Explorer:

    logName="projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/networkservices.googleapis.com%2Fgateway_requests"
trace="projects/PROJECT_ID/traces/TRACE_ID"

For more information, see Distributed tracing overview and Trace outbound traffic with Cloud Trace.

Route proxy transaction logs

You can route proxy transaction logs to other destinations like Cloud Storage, BigQuery, or Pub/Sub by using log sinks. For more information, see Route log entries.

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