Access Manager can record events in flat text files or in a relational database.
The default flat file format is the W3C Extended Log Format (ELF). Access Manager uses this format to record the default fields in each log record. See Recorded Events for a list of default fields and their descriptions. The following code example illustrates an authentication log record formatted for a flat file.
"2005-08-01 16:20:28" "Login Success" LDAP AUTHENTICATION-100 dc=example,dc=com e7aac4e717dda1bd01 INFO uid=amAdmin,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com 192.18.187.152 "cn=exampleuser,ou=Example Users,dc=example,dc=com" exampleHost |
In the example, the fields are in this order: Time, Data, ModuleName, MessageID, Domain, ContextID, LogLevel, LoginID, IPAddr, LoggedBy, and HostName.
When Access Manager uses a relational database to log messages, the messages are stored in a database table. Access Manager uses Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) to access the database table. JDBC provides connectivity to a wide range of SQL databases. JDBC also provides access to other tabular data sources such as spreadsheets or flat files. Oracle® and MySQL databases are currently supported.
For log records generated by Access Manager 7.0, the Data and MessageID fields are used slightly differently than in previous Access manager versions. Starting with Access Manager 7.0, the MessageID field is introduced as a kind of template for types of log messages. For example, in previous versions, Access Manager would generate the following message in the Data field:
Data: "Created group cn=agroupSubscription1,ou=Groups,dc=iplanet,dc=com"
In Access Manager 7.0, two log records are recorded for the one event:
Data: agroupSubscription1|group|/ MessageID: CONSOLE-1
and
Data: agroupSubscription1|group|/ MessageID: CONSOLE-2
The log records reflect the use of identities and realms, new in Access Manager 7.0. In this example, CONSOLE-1 indicates an attempt to create an identity, and CONSOLE-2 indicates the attempt to create an identity was successful. The root organization notation (dc=iplanet,dc=com) is replaced with a forward slash (/). The variable parts of the messages (agroupSubscription1, group, and /) are separated by a pipe character (|), and continue to go into the Data field of each log record. The MessagID string is not internationalized in order to facilitate machine-readable analysis of the log records in any locale.
The following table summarizes the schema for a relational database.
Table 6–1 Relational Database Log Format