Binary Logging Header

Binary logging is a functionality introduced in Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 5. This feature allows server information to be stored in a single log file that contains binary, unformatted log data of all the web sites hosted on a server. It thus minimizes the usage of system resources used for logging, may improve performance and scalability, and at the same time records detailed log information. The feature is enabled by making changes in the server.xml file. The server.xml should have a new element mode with binary value specified in access-log. If the mode element is missing or its value is not specified, the default value is text. The text option writes access log in ASCII format, as was in previous Web Server releases. However, if the mode element is specified with binary value, the access log is written in binary format.

To enable binary logging, add the following in the server.xml:

<access-log>
<file>../logs/access/<file>
<mode>binary</mode>
</access-log>

In Web Server, the binary log file is bundled in the product bin directory called binlog and includes a log writer 1.0, log reader 1.0 and a version identifier. The version identifier identifies the versions of log writer and log reader and will be upgraded accordingly in future releases.

The log writer 1.0 writes the log format into a raw binary log file which is not human readable. The binary log reader 1.0 takes the binary access log file as input, extracts it and prints the log in human readable ASCII format on the console.

Binary log accepts the following arguments:

Binary log is executed in the following two ways:

$binlog < access.log

$binlog -i access.log