Logging on UNIX and Windows Platforms

This section discusses how log files are created. In addition, this section includes the following topics:

• Default Error Logging

• Logging Using syslog

For more information on the event log mechanism used in the Windows operating environment, refer to the Windows help system index for the keywords Event Logging.

Default Error Logging

On both the UNIX and Windows platforms, logs from the administration server are collected in the administration proxy-admserv/logs/ directory. Logs from the server instances are collected in the proxy-server_name/logs/ directory.

The default log level for the entire server can be set. You can redirect stdout and stderr to the server’s event log and direct the log output to the operating system’s system log. Additionally, you can direct stdout and stderr content to the server’s event log. Log messages by default are sent to stderr in addition to the specified server log file.

Logging Using syslog

For stable operational environments where centralized logging is required, syslog is appropriate. For environments where log output is frequently required for diagnostics and debugging, individual server instance logs might be more manageable.

Because storing logged data for the server instance and administration server in one file might prove difficult to read and debug, use the syslog master log file only for deployed applications that are running smoothly.

Logged message are intermixed with all other logs from the Solaris daemon applications.

By using the syslog log file in conjunction with syslogd and the system log daemon, you can configure the syslog.conf file to perform the following actions:

• Log messages to the appropriate system log

• Write messages to the system console

• Forward logged messages to a list of users, or forward logged messages to another syslogd on another host over the network

Because logging to syslog implies that logs from Proxy Server and other daemon applications are collected in the same file, logged messages are enhanced with the following information to identify Proxy Server-specific messages from the particular server instance:

• Unique message ID

• Timestamp

• Instance name

• Program name (proxyd or proxyd-wdog)

• Process ID (PID of the proxyd process)

• Thread ID (optional)

• Server ID

The LOG element can be configured for both the administration server and the server instance in the server.xml file.

For more information on the syslog logging mechanism used in the UNIX operating environment, use the following man commands at a terminal prompt:

man syslog
man syslogd
man syslog.conf