System event logging

The following types of messages are provided:

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 Express code is able to handle the condition without failing.

Error

A serious failure in the execution of the application that requires further action.

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 WebSphere Application Server administrative console. To set traces by using the portlet, proceed by the following steps:

1. Log in as the administrator.
2. From the Main Menu click Administration > Portal Analysis > Enable Tracing. The Enable Tracing portlet appears.
3. Type the required trace string into the field Append these trace settings:. For example, this can be com.ibm.wps.command.credentialvault.*=finest
4. Click the Add icon. Enable Tracing updates the field Current trace settings:

Note: Restarting WebSphere Portal Express 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 WebSphere Application Server configuration. Proceed by the following steps:

1. Access the WebSphere Application Server Administrative Console by using this URL: http://hostname:port_number/ibm/console
2. Go to the Server > Application servers section.
3. Select the application server.
4. Click Troubleshooting > Change Log Detail Levels.
5. Specify the required trace settings. For example, this can be com.ibm.wps.command.credentialvault.*=finest
6. Save your updates.
7. Restart WebSphere Portal Express.
8. To disable tracing, specify tracestring: *=info and restart WebSphere Portal Express.

When you configure WebSphere Portal Express to write its trace and message logging to a separate log file, a new file named trace.log is created. This file is updated when an error occurs or if trace logs are created. The file is created in the following directory:

• Windows: portal_server_root\log
• Linux: portal_server_root/log
• i5/OS: portal_server_root/log

You can change the location and the name of this file by changing the configuration key logFileName in the log configuration file log.properties. The file is located in the following WebSphere Portal Express directory:

• Linux: portal_server_root/shared/app/config
• i5/OS: portal_server_root/shared/app/config
• Windows: portal_server_root\shared\app\config

The specified log file name can contain one of two tokens that are automatically replaced with the corresponding values when starting WebSphere Portal Express:

• $APPSERVER_NAME: The name of the application server. Use this token for vertical clusters to enforce that the different application servers write into different files or directories if they share the same file system.
• $CREATE_TIME: The date and time at which the file was created.

You can specify the location of the log file either using a relative path or an absolute path.

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

• Windows: portal_server_root\shared\app\config
• Linux: portal_server_root/shared/app/config
• i5/OS: portal_server_root/shared/app/config

Add the following line:

locale=xx 

where xxis the two-letter abbreviation for the locale. For a list of the locale abbreviations used with WebSphere Portal Express, refer to Directories for languages. For example, to have log information generated in English, you would add the following line:

 locale=en 

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.

The following is an example of a log record:

2003.05.16 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.