Gateway Log File

Overview Copied

The Gateway writes all of its log messages to a log file, allowing quick access the past Gateway behaviour. These log messages include descriptions of what the Gateway is doing as well as errors that may have occurred.

Each log message is written on a separate line, and starts with the date and time that it was generated.

Operation Copied

Specify the log file name Copied

To specify the log file name, either:

• Use the LOG_FILENAME environment variable in the Gateway startup script or Gateway setup file. This is how it is configured to be set up using the example in How to create a start script for Gateway.
• Use the -log command line option when starting the Gateway.

If both are set, the command line option overrides the LOG_FILENAME environment variable.

Use date and time specifiers in log file name Copied

You can use date and time specifiers in the log file name. These specifiers then get populated with relevant date/time information during the logging process. By default this is evaluated against the Gateway start time, but is evaluated against the roll time if this is used.

See Time Zones and Time Formats for a list of time specifiers.

Note

It is possible that using these specifiers will allow a number of log files to build up on disk. See Archive log files for more information.

For example, if you start up a Gateway on the 3rd of Jan 2013 at 09:30, the command containing -log GatewayLogExample-%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M.log, the generated log file would be GatewayLogExample-2013-01-03-09-30.log.

Specify the log file time formatting Copied

There are two ways to specify the time formatting used in the log file:

• Set the LOG_TIME_FORMAT environment variable: - (default) ISO-8601: 2019-09-25 09:18:28.871-0400 - ISO-8601-UTC: 2019-09-25 13:18:28.871Z - LEGACY: <Wed Sep 25 09:18:28>
• Set the Log time format option in the Operating environment using the Gateway Setup Editor: - (default) Iso-8601: 2019-09-25 09:18:28.871-0400 - Iso-8601-utc: 2019-09-25 13:18:28.871Z - Legacy: <Wed Sep 25 09:18:28>

Caution

The log time format set in the Gateway Setup Editor overrides the log time format set in the LOG_TIME_FORMAT environment variable.

Roll over due to maximum file size Copied

To stop log files from getting excessively large, Gateway log files roll over when they reach a certain size limit.

Upon hitting this size limit, the active log file is archived. See Archive log files.

By default, the log file rolls over when the log file reaches 10485760 bytes (or 10 MB). However, it can be configured to rollover after up to a maximum of 2147483647 bytes (2 GB) with a 32-bit Gateway.

To do this, either:

• Set the environment variable MAX_LOG_FILE_SIZE_MB to an appropriate amount in MB.
• Set operatingEnvironment > maxLogFileSizeMb to an appropriate amount in MB.

Roll over at a specified time of day Copied

The Gateway log file can be set to roll over at a specified time of day via the -roll-time command line option. When this is set, the Gateway log file automatically rolls over after the specified time of day, at the point when a new log message comes in.

For example, if the rollover time is set to 18:00 and at 18:02 the next log message comes in, the current log file is closed and a new log file is generated at 18:02. This log message is then be written into the new file.

You may only set one role time.

Note

When time-based rolling is active, any time specifiers used in the filename are evaluated against the roll time rather than the gateway start time. This means that a new log file is not generated each time the Gateway is simply stopped and started. Therefore, if a gateway is started at 09:00 on 02-Mar-2012 and the roll time is 10:00, the date and time used to generate the log file name is 10:00 01-Mar-2012.

When rolling, if the new file name generated by the Gateway already exists, the existing file is archived. See Archive log files.

Archive log files Copied

When the log file reaches its maximum size, or a roll time has been reached, a new log file is opened. When the Gateway starts a new log file, any existing file with the same name is renamed to <filename>.old.

To prevent a large number of log files being retained, only the latest .old file is kept. If <filename>.old already exists it is overwritten. Consequently, using a simple filename results in there only ever being two log files: the current log, and the old log.

Using time specifiers in the filename usually results in a new filename that does not already exist, particularly if the full date is used. However, this may cause the number of files on disk to continue to increase.

Not including the whole date increases the number of possibilities, such as just including the day or day of the month, which creates a weekly or monthly rotation of files. .old files may still be generated during a day if the maximum size is reached, therefore it may be advisable to increase the maximum size if the files on disk is limited by a rotation system.

A UNIX script can be called to move log files.

The archive script can be used to:

• Move or copy .old files into an archive elsewhere.
• Prevent a large number of date/time based files building up by removing the older ones if the full date is specified.

The UNIX script can be specified using:

• [operatingEnvironment > logArchiveScript
• LOG_ARCHIVE_SCRIPT environment variable. Using operatingEnvironment > logArchiveScript overrides LOG_ARCHIVE_SCRIPT (if set). The script is run when the Gateway switches to using a new log file. The name of the old log file is passed to the script, which is either:
• <filename>.old, if the log file name did not change.
• The old log <filename>, if the log file name did change.

If the log file name is changed to a file that already exists, the existing file is moved to <filename>.old. That file is not passed to the archive script.

Log file connections Copied

This section lists common log entries from a Gateway log file and errors that may occur when a component is disconnected from the Gateway.

When the Netprobe connection disconnects from the Gateway, these INFO messages might appear:

To resolve this, do the following:

• Check if the Netprobe process is running.
• Execute a PING and TRACEROUTE checks to the Netprobe port and server.

When the Active Console disconnects from the Gateway, these INFO messages might appear:

Check if the Gateway is overloaded Copied

If the disconnection occurs frequently, do any of the following:

• Check if the Gateway is overloaded by looking at the Gateway’s Data Quality statistics. For more information, see Gateway log file reporting in Data Quality Guide.
• If the Gateway is overloaded, conduct a performance tuning on the Gateway. For more information, see Gateway Performance Tuning.

Check if the Active Console is overloaded Copied

If Gateway is not overloaded, but the disconnection still occurs frequently, check the Active Console.

1. Restart the Active Console.
2. Create a new workspace.
3. Connect to the affected Gateway and observe if the error still persists.

If the disconnection stops, then the original workspace causes the issue.

To resolve this, do the following in the Active Console:

• Remove the unused List views.
• Remove the unused dashboards.
• Only connect to the Gateways that are being monitored.
• Optimise the XPaths on the List views and dashboards.