---
isPrivate: true
title: Agent 5 Debug Mode
description: Datadog, the leading service for cloud-scale monitoring.
breadcrumbs: Docs > Agent > Agent Guides > Agent 5 Debug Mode
---

# Agent 5 Debug Mode

## Overview{% #overview %}

The Agent, by default, logs in `INFO` level. You can set the log level to `DEBUG` to get more information from your logs.

**Note**: Debug mode is meant for debugging purposes only. Datadog recommends only enabling `DEBUG` for a certain window of time as it increases the number of indexed logs. Set the log level back to `INFO` when done.

To enable the Agent full debug mode:

1. Modify your local `datadog.conf` file. See [Agent main configuration file](https://docs.datadoghq.com/agent/guide/agent-5-configuration-files.md) for OS specific details.
1. Replace `# log_level: INFO` with `log_level: DEBUG` (remove `#` to uncomment the line).
1. Restart the Datadog Agent. See [Agent Commands](https://docs.datadoghq.com/agent/guide/agent-5-commands.md) for OS specific details.
1. Wait a few minutes to generate some logs. See [Agent Log Files](https://docs.datadoghq.com/agent/guide/agent-5-log-files.md) for OS specific details.

## Containerized Agent{% #containerized-agent %}

When run in a container, the Agent cannot be restarted with `service datadog-agent restart` (or similar) which causes the container to be killed by Docker. Use supervisor to restart a containerized Agent:

```text
/opt/datadog-agent/bin/supervisorctl -c /etc/dd-agent/supervisor.conf restart all
```

With the following commands, enable debug logging, restart the Agent, wait 60 seconds, then send a flare, in that order:

```shell
sed -i '/\[Main\]/a LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG' /etc/dd-agent/datadog.conf
/opt/datadog-agent/bin/supervisorctl -c /etc/dd-agent/supervisor.conf restart all
sleep 60
/etc/init.d/datadog-agent flare <CASE_ID>
```

Debug logs can be disabled with:

```shell
sed -i '/LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG/d' /etc/dd-agent/datadog.conf
/opt/datadog-agent/bin/supervisorctl -c /etc/dd-agent/supervisor.conf restart all
```

Or the container can be restarted.

## Agent log level{% #agent-log-level %}

The following Agent log levels are available for `log_level` or `DD_LOG_LEVEL`:

| Option       | Critical logs | Error logs | Warn logs | Info logs | Debug logs | Trace logs |
| ------------ | ------------- | ---------- | --------- | --------- | ---------- | ---------- |
| `'OFF'`      |
| `'CRITICAL'` | yes           |
| `'ERROR'`    | yes           | yes        |
| `'WARN'`     | yes           | yes        | yes       |
| `'INFO'`     | yes           | yes        | yes       | yes       |
| `'DEBUG'`    | yes           | yes        | yes       | yes       | yes        |
| `'TRACE'`    | yes           | yes        | yes       | yes       | yes        | yes        |

**Note**: When setting the log level to `'OFF'` in the configuration file, quotes are mandatory to prevent the value from being improperly parsed. Quotes are optional for other log levels.