Tracing configuration file entries
Each tracing configuration file contains entries that control the logging of message events and trace events. However, the format of these entries differs by event type. Use one of the following formats (entered on a single line without spaces) when defining entries in tracing configuration files:
- Message events
- severity:destination:location [[;destination:location]...] [;GOESTO:{other_severity | other_component}]
- Trace events
- component:subcomponent.level[[,subcomponent.level]...] :destination:location [[;destination:location]...] [;GOESTO:{other_severity | other_component}]
Where:
- component:subcomponent.level[[,subcomponent.level]...]
- Component, subcomponents, and reporting levels of trace events to log. For trace events only. For the component portion, we can specify an asterisk (*) to log trace data for all components.
- For the subcomponent portion, we can specify an asterisk (*) to log trace data for all subcomponents of the specified component.
- For the level portion, specify the reporting level to log. This value is a number 1 - 9. A level of 1 indicates the least number of details, and a level of 9 indicates the greatest number of details.
- destination
- Where to log the events. For each destination, we need to specify a location. When we specify multiple destination-location pairs, separate each pair with a semicolon (;). The following destinations are valid:
- DISCARD
- Discards the events.
- FILE
- Writes the events as ASCII text in the current code page and locale to the specified location. When we use this destination, specify a location for the file. Optionally, we can follow the FILE destination by a period and two numbers that are separated by a period (for example, FILE.10.100). The first value indicates the number of files to use. The second value indicates the number of events each file can contain. If we do not specify these values, there is only one log file that grows without limit. The average size of an ASCII event is 200 bytes. Because the maximum size of a log file is 2 GB, limit the maximum number of events to approximately 10,000,000 events.
- STDERR
- Writes the events as ASCII text in the current code page and locale to the standard error device.
- STDOUT
- Writes the events as ASCII text in the current code page and locale to the standard output device.
- TEXTFILE
- Same as FILE.
- UTF8FILE
- Writes the events as UTF-8 text to the specified location. When we use this destination, specify a location for the file. Optionally, we can follow the UTF8FILE destination by a period and two numbers that are separated by a period (for example, UTF8FILE.10.100). The first value indicates the number of files to use. The second value indicates the number of events each file can contain. If we do not specify these values, there is only one log file that grows without limit. The average size of a UTF-8 event is 200 bytes. Because the maximum size of a log file is 2 GB, limit the maximum number of events to approximately 10,000,000 events. When the operating system does not use a UTF-8 code page, the conversion to UTF-8 can result in data loss. When data loss occurs, the log file contains a series of question mark (?) characters at the location where the data conversion was problematic.
- XMLFILE
- Writes events to the specified location in the XML log format. When we use this destination, specify a location for the file. Optionally, we can follow the XMLFILE destination by a period and two numbers that are separated by a period (for example, XMLFILE.10.100). The first value indicates the number of files to use. The second value indicates the number of events each file can contain. If we do not specify these values, there is only one log file that grows without limit. The average size of an XML message event is 650 bytes, and the average size of an XML trace event is 500 bytes. Because the maximum size of a log file is 2 GB, limit the maximum number of events to approximately 3,000,000 message events or 4,000,000 trace events.
- XMLSTDERR
- Writes events to the standard error device in the XML log format.
- XMLSTDOUT
- Writes events to the standard output device in the XML log format.
- GOESTO:{other_severity | other_component}]
- Specifies to route events to the same destination and location as either message events of the specified severity or trace events of the specified component.
- location
- Name and location of the log file. When the destination is TEXT, TEXTFILE, UTF8FILE or XMLFILE, specify a location. When the destination is DISCARD, STDERR, STDOUT, XMLSTDERR or XMLSTDOUT, specify a hyphen (-). When we specify a fully qualified file name, we can use the %ld character string to insert the process ID into the file name. When the number of files is specified as part of the destination, a period and the file number are appended to the specified log file. On Windows operating systems, the file name must not end with a period. If the file name ends with a period, when the file number is appended, the file name contains two consecutive periods. File names with two consecutive periods are not valid. On AIX, Linux, and Solaris operating systems, the file name must be followed by file permissions, the user who owns the file, and the group that owns the file. Use the following format:
location:permissions:owner:group
To specify the location for message events from the policy server and write them to the default UTF-8 log file, we can specify the following location:
/var/PolicyDirector/log/msg__pdmgrd_utf8.log:644:ivmgr:ivmgr
- severity
- Specifies the severity of the message events to log. For message events only. The following message severities are valid:
We can specify an asterisk (*) to log messages regardless of severity. See: Severity of message events.
Parent topic: Customize logging events with tracing configuration files