Basic Configuration Tasks

Configuring Logging

Configuring Logging

SNAplus2 writes log messages describing abnormal events (and, optionally, normal events) to log files. When you try to diagnose a problem, the first place to look is in the log files, because the log messages provide information about the cause of the problem and the action you should take.

SNAplus2 logs messages for the following categories of event:

Problem

An abnormal event that degrades the system in a way perceptible to a user (such as abnormal termination of a session).

Exception

An abnormal event that degrades the system but that is not immediately perceptible to a user (such as a resource shortage), or an event that does not degrade the system but may indicate the cause of later exceptions or problems (such as receiving an unexpected message from the remote system).

Audit

A normal event (such as starting a session).

To distinguish between logs relating to normal and error conditions, the different message categories are logged to different files. Problem and exception messages are logged to the error log file; audit messages are logged to the audit log file.

SNAplus2 provides a backup mechanism to prevent log files from becoming too large and consuming disk resources. When a log file reaches the maximum permitted size, SNAplus2 copies its current contents to a backup file and then clears the log file.

By default, SNAplus2 uses the following log files:

Error log file

/var/opt/sna/sna.err /var/opt/sna/bak.err (backup)

Audit log file

/var/opt/sna/sna.aud /var/opt/sna/bak.aud (backup)

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