Viewing the Trace Log

The trace log records Policy Management application notifications, such as protocol messages, policy messages, and custom messages generated by policy actions, for individual servers. Trace logs are not replicated between servers in a cluster, but they persist after failovers. You can use the trace log to debug problems by tracing through application-level messages.

The activity of the Policy Rules Engine is recorded in a trace log at eight levels: Emergency (ID 4560), Alert (ID 4561), Critical (ID 4562), Error (ID 4563), Warning (ID 4564), Notice (ID 4565) Info (ID 4566), and Debug (ID 4567). You can configure the severity level of messages that are recorded in the trace log.

To view the Trace log:

Select the device to view:
- To view an MPE device, from the Policy Server section of the navigation pane, select Configuration.
- To view an MRA device, from the MRA section of the navigation pane, select Configuration.
The content tree displays a list of groups; the initial group is ALL.
From the content tree, select the device.
The appropriate Administration page opens in the work area.
On the Administration page, select the Logs tab.
Log information for the selected device is displayed.
Click View Trace Log.
While data is being retrieved, the in-progress message Scanning Trace Logs appears.
When the Trace Log Viewer window opens in a new browser window, all events contain the following information:
- Date/Time
  Event timestamp. This time is relative to the server time.
- Code
  The event code or ID number. For information about event codes and messages, see the Troubleshooting Reference.
- Severity
  Severity level of the event. Application-level trace log entries are not logged at a higher level than Error.
- Message
  The message associated with the event. If additional information is available, the event entry shows as a link. Click the link to see additional detail in the frame below.
Filter the events displayed using the following:
- Trace Log Viewer for Server
  Select the individual server within the cluster.
- Start Date/Time
  Click (calendar icon), select the starting date and time, then click Enter.
- End Date/Time
  Click (calendar icon), select the ending date and time, then click Enter.
- Trace Codes
  Enter one or a comma-separated list of trace code IDs. Trace code IDs are integer strings up to 10 digits long.
- Use timezone of remote server for Start Date/Time
  Select to use the time of a remote server (if it is in a different time zone) instead of the time of the CMP server.
- Severity
  Filter by severity level. Events with the selected severity and higher are displayed. For example, if the severity selected is Warning, the trace log displays events with the severity level Warning and higher.
- Contains
  Enter a text string to search for. For example, if you enter connection, all events containing the word connection display.
  
  Note: The Start Date/Time setting overrides the Contains setting. For example, if you search for events happening this month, and search for a string in events last month and this month, only results from this month are listed.
After entering the filtering information, click Search.
The selected events are displayed. By default, the window displays 25 events per page.
To change the number of events per page, select a value from the Display results per page list.
You can change this to 50, 75, or 100 events per page.
Note: Events that occur after the Trace Log Viewer starts are not visible until you refresh the display.
To refresh the display, click any of the following:
- Show Most Recent
  Applies filter settings and refreshes the display. This displays the most recent log entries that fit the filtering criteria.
- Next/Prev
  When the number of trace log entries exceeds the page limit, pagination is applied. Use the Prev or Next buttons to navigate through the trace log entries. When the Next button is not visible, you have reached the most recent log entries; when the Prev button is not visible, you have reached the oldest log entries.
- First/Last
  When the number of trace log entries exceeds the page limit, pagination is applied. Use the First and Last buttons to navigate to the beginning or end of the trace log. When the Last button is not visible, you have reached the end; when the First button is not visible, you have reached the beginning.
Click Close.
The trace log window closes.