Log directories can be retrieved from the configs stored in ambari database. Have a look at https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/AMBARI/Modify+configurations. To find how to get a config You can execute the script from ambari-server host Example : ./configs.sh get localhost my hadoop-env | grep -i log_dir
- Configs and corresponding variable
HDFS : "hadoop-env","hdfs_log_dir_prefix"
YARN : "yarn-env","yarn_log_dir_prefix"
MAPREDUCE2 : "mapred-env","mapred_log_dir_prefix"