What is the difference between these error logs?
Apache generally only has an access.log
storing information about which files have been requested and a generall error.log
storing all (or most) errors that occurred during fullfilling any requests.
You can control whether the latter contains php errors or not via the php.ini directive log_errors
.
What does var and tmp mean? and was this created by the user or is it inside apache?
/var
is the linux standard directory for shared user data.
/var/tmp
is a non-standard directory, but the name tmp
always hints disposable data.
Is a file with a file type of file unserviceable by apache? as my server creates a error log for php within my document root with the file type of file, is this a standard thing?
Having the logs within the servable area is definitely not standard and even imposes a security threat. Logfiles should be kept outside of the web reachable area.
And if Apache couldnt serve files, what else would it serve?