When working with Umbraco Cloud, I occasionally need to access Kudu for debugging and deployment tasks. You can access Kudu by clicking the “Kudu” button in your site’s dashboard, or directly via the URL: https:// (where the cloud region might be euwest01, for example).
When a site fails to start or a deployment fails without clear errors, the event log in Kudu can provide crucial insights. However, the raw experience leaves much to be desired.
To solve this problem, I created two userscripts that enhance the Kudu interface.
What is a userscript?
A userscript is a program, usually written in JavaScript, for modifying web pages to augment browsing. Uses include adding shortcut buttons and keyboard shortcuts, controlling playback speeds, adding features to sites, and enhancing the browsing history.
To use a userscript, you need a userscript manager. There are several available, but the most popular is Tampermonkey. Tampermonkey is available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
Visualizing Event Logs
First thing to look at is the event log of the site. The event log contains information from IIS, and tells you any problems when starting the site. It can also contain information about failed deployments, and other issues.
But, it’s not the most user-friendly experience. It’s a raw XML file, and you have to manually parse it.
- The event log is located at
/LogFiles/eventlog.xml - It can be a massive XML file with thousands of entries
- The most recent (and relevant) information is at the bottom
- There’s no syntax highlighting or formatting
- You have to manually parse XML in your head
This userscript adds a new “Event Log” tab to the Kudu interface, providing a much better experience:
- Parsed and formatted: Events are displayed in a clean table format
- Most recent first: The latest events appear at the top (no more scrolling)
- Color-coded: Each event type has its own color for quick identification
- Structured columns: Event time, type, message, and source are clearly separated
The event log helps you diagnose issues like missing DLLs, IIS startup failures, configuration problems, and data-related errors.
How to use it
- Install the Kudu Event Log Viewer userscript from my umbraco-userscripts repository
- Navigate to your Umbraco Cloud Kudu interface (e.g.,
*.scm.euwest01.umbraco.io) - Click the “Event Log” link in the navbar
- Click “Load Event Log” to fetch and display events
- Events are displayed in Bootstrap panels with full details
Tracking Deployments
When using CI/CD with Umbraco Cloud, deployment visibility is limited compared to traditional git push deployments. You lose the immediate feedback from git logs about build status and deployment progress.
Normally, when a deployment fails, you need to manually navigate through files in /site/deployments to find:
- Which deployment is currently active
- Individual deployment folders with logs and status files
- Scattered information across multiple locations
The Deployment Viewer userscript consolidates all this information into a single dashboard:
- Deployment status: See the current state of all deployments
- Live logs: View logs for each deployment
- Auto-refresh: Enable live updates to monitor deployments in real-time
- Manual triggers: Start a new deployment without making a git change
How to use it
- Install the Umbraco Cloud Deployment Viewer userscript from my umbraco-userscripts repository
- Navigate to your Umbraco Cloud Kudu interface (e.g.,
*.scm.euwest01.umbraco.io) - Click the “Deployments” link in the navbar
- View the latest deployment status and log
- Click “Auto-refresh” to enable live log and status updates
- Click “Trigger New Deployment” to start a new deployment
- Click on any deployment in the history table to view full details in a modal
- Click file counts to view the deployment manifest
Final Thoughts
While Umbraco Cloud’s dashboard provides excellent visibility for most scenarios, these userscripts fill important gaps when you need to dig deeper. They transform Kudu from a basic file browser into a powerful debugging and deployment monitoring tool.
Both userscripts are available on GitHub. Give them a try the next time you’re troubleshooting a deployment issue or investigating a site failure.
