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BCM50 Administration Guide
Chapter 12
Managing BCM50 Logs
This chapter contains information about viewing and managing log archives generated by the
BCM50.
Overview of BCM50 logs
A log archive is a collection of individual log events generated by the BCM50. An administrator
can use log archives to monitor and analyze system behavior, user sessions, and events.
You manage logs by transferring selected BCM50 log archives from the BCM50 to a specified
location, such as your personal computer. You can then view individual log events using the
Element Manager Log Browser or your usual text editor.
In addition to the log files generated by the BCM50, the Element Manager itself generates a log
file. This log is found under the File selection of the Element Manager toolbar. This log contains
diagnostic information.
The BCM50 manages log archives and maintains generations of information depending upon size
or other criteria. Generations of log files have a numbered extension such as 3.gz.
A generation of the alarms.systemlog file is created each time the BCM50 is rebooted or when the
log file reaches the 1 MB limit.
Log types
The BCM50 logs are grouped in three categories:
• Operational logs
• Diagnostic logs
• Sensitive logs
Each log category contains one or more log files.
A log transfer groups all selected categories into a common archive. The embedded categories
have easily identified names and are accessible to utilities such as WinZip (MS-Windows) and tar
(UNIX).
When you transfer log archives, a set of additional log files is included in the log archive. These
files are system information reports, which contain information about the system at the time of the
log transfer.
Note: Depending on the privileges assigned to you, you may or may not see all
the log files or processes described in this chapter.