System event logging

Message logging

Informational	A condition worth noting but does not require the user to perform an action.
Warning	An abnormal condition has been detected. The user may have to take action. However, WebSphere Portal code is able to handle the condition without failing.
Error	A serious failure in the execution of the application that requires further action.

Messages for WebSphere Portal are logged in the following files:

• SystemOut.log
• System.err

Located in:

WP_PROFILE/logs/WebSphere_Portal

Trace logging

WebSphere Portal provides the logging of debugging messages called traces. These traces are useful for fixing problems. However, to save system resources, they are switched off by default.

Traces can be set for different durations:

Temporary

Traces can be set for a temporary period by using the administration portlet Enable Tracing or the IBM WAS administrative console. To set traces by using the portlet...

Administration | Portal Analysis | Enable Tracing

.and set the trace string in field...

Append these trace settings

For example:

com.ibm.wps.command.credentialvault.*=finest

Restarting WebSphere Portal will remove traces that were set by using the Enable Tracing Administration portlet.

To disable tracing, do either of the following:

• Select the current trace settings under Current trace settings: and click the Remove icon. By the example given above, the current setting can be com.ibm.wps.command.credentialvault.*=finest.

• Type the trace string *=info into the field Append these trace settings: and click the Add icon. This trace string overwrites all settings listed under Current trace settings: and resets it to the default.

Extended

To enable trace settings for a longer period of time, that is, for more than one session, switch them on in the WAS configuration. Proceed by the following steps:

Servers | Server Types | WebSphere application servers application server | Troubleshooting | Change Log Detail Levels

Specify the required trace settings. For example, this can be com.ibm.wps.command.credentialvault.*=finest

Restart WebSphere Portal.

To disable tracing, specify tracestring, *=info, and restart WebSphere Portal.

Change the log file name and location

You can change the locations of the log files by configuring them in the WAS administrative console. Select Troubleshooting -> Logs and Trace -> server_name and select the logger type that you want to change. In the configuration dialog change the path for the log file as required. For a description of the available types of log files refer to the WAS information center.

Change the language used in the log file

By default, information in the log file is written in the language that was used for the WebSphere Portal installation. However, because WebSphere Portal supports a number of languages, you can choose to have the log file information written in a language other than that used during installation.

To change the language used for the log file, edit the file log.properties. This file is located in the following WebSphere Portal directory:

>WP_PROFILE/PortalServer/config/config

.and add the following line...

locale=xx

...where xxis the two-letter abbreviation for the locale.

For example, to have log information generated in English, you would add the following line:

locale=en

Reference: Log file format

If the logs are written to the log file of WebSphere Portal and not redirected to the logging facility WAS, the log file consists of a sequence log records that are separated by blank lines.

The log records have the following format:

timestamp classification classname method threadID messagecode: logmessage

Where:

• timestamp is the time (to the millisecond) when the log record was created.

• classification is one of the following letters:
  • E for error messages
  • W for warning messages
  • I for informational messages
  • l for traces (low details)
  • m for traces (medium details)
  • h for traces (high details)

• classname is the Java class containing the code that triggered the log event.

• method is the name of the Java method containing the code that triggered the log event.

• messagecode is a unique identifier for this message, to uniquely identify the specific message and refer to it when consulting documentation or support. The message code is only available for error, warning, or informational messages, and not for traces. It consists of:
  • a four-character identifier for the component that defines the message.
  • a four-digit number identifying the message in the component.
  • a one-letter classification code, which can be E, W or I , as defined above.

• logmessage is the actual log message describing the logged event. Error, warning, and informational messages are translated into the system locale. Trace messages are not translated.

• threadID is the identification of the thread that triggered the log event.

Traces are written only if the specific tracing facility is enabled; all other messages are written unconditionally.

The system locale is part of the general internationalization features of WebSphere Portal and can be configured via LocalizerService. For more information refer to the topics about Setting service configuration properties and about the Portal configuration services.

The following is an example of a log record:

2011.05.16 13:36:14.449 W com.ibm.wps.services.datastore.DataStoreServiceImpl init 0000003a
DSTO0063W: The transaction isolation level is not set to READ_COMMITTED.
 
The current value is TRANSACTION_REPEATABLE_READ.

Parent

Logging and tracing

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