Yes, I did use the "search" and No it did not help me find the answer.
Now to the problem:
First, I couldn't start anope with ./services because there is no executable named services in the root directory. Scouring on the internet, I came across a thread from 2004 that apparently it should be ./src/services and that seems to be the right one because it throws the following error:
0 ✓ ip-10-73-212-234 ~/anope-1.8.9 $ pwd
/root/anope-1.8.9
0 ✓ ip-10-73-212-234 ~/anope-1.8.9 $ ./src/services
WARNING: You are currently running Anope as the root superuser. Anope does not
require root privileges to run, and it is discouraged that you run Anope
as the root superuser.
Can't open services.conf: No such file or directory
255 ✗ ip-10-73-212-234 ~/anope-1.8.9 $ ls -l data/services.conf
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 56897 Mar 19 20:07 data/services.conf
0 ✓ ip-10-73-212-234 ~/anope-1.8.9 $ find . | grep log
./version.log.old
./version.log
./src/log.c
./src/log.o
./src/core/os_logonnews.c
./src/core/ns_logout.s
./src/core/cs_logout.o
./src/core/os_logonnews.so
./src/core/os_logonnews.o
./src/core/cs_logout.c
./src/core/ns_logout.o
./src/core/cs_logout.so
./src/core/ns_logout.so
./src/core/os_logonnews.s
./src/core/cs_logout.s
./src/core/ns_logout.c
./config.log
0 ✓ ip-10-73-212-234 ~/anope-1.8.9 $
The threads that I found using the search:
https://forum.anope.org/index.php?topic=3729.msg20063#msg20063 says to create a services.conf but doesn't specify the location, doesn't help.
https://forum.anope.org/index.php?topic=1826.msg10022#msg10022 says to move it to data folder. It is already moved to data folder, doesn't work.
Also, where are the logs stored ?