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This page is for administrators who need to monitor events on the PhixFlow system using the server log files.
Overview
You can monitor PhixFlow activity using:
- the
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- records details of user activity and tasks within PhixFlow. For details, see System Console. You can configure system logging options in the System Logging Configuration properties.
- server log files, which record PhixFlow activity on the server and network. These files are generated by:
- the PhixFlow webapp
- the Tomcat servlet.
This page explains where to find the server log files, and how to configure them.
See also Logs for Third-Party Systems.
If you want to integrate PhixFlow server logs into other logging frameworks, such as Google Cloud's stackdriver, please contact support@phixflow.com.
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PhixFlow Webapp Log Files
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Where to Look
To find the logged information about PhixFlow webapp activity on the server and network, use the log files saved in the <tomcat_installation_base>/logs
directory. You can also download a zip file of all or selected log files; see Downloading Server Log Files, below.
The default names of the server log files generated by PhixFlow are:
- phixflow.log
- phixflow.log.<date>
- security.log
- security.log<date>
If you have multiple instances of PhixFlow hosted under the same Tomcat instance, each PhixFlow instance requires a different log file name. You can find the log file names for different instances in logback.xml.
Security.log records:
- all logouts, including details of the username, session, IP address, and whether the user logged out or their session timed out.
- all login attempts, including details of the username and IP address of the user. Additionally:
- successful logins include the session
- failed attempts include the reason for the failure.
Configuration
phixflow-logging.xml
phixflow-logging.xml is configured at installation; see Configure phixflow-logging.xml. When you use the PhixFlow Administration menu option Download Log Files, PhixFlow uses this file to find the the path to the logs
directory;
see see Downloading Server Log Files, below.
You only need to change this file as requested by PhixFlow Support.
logback.xml
logback.xml is configured at installation; see Configure logback.xml. The installer sets:
- the default level of event or error logging
- the name of the log files generated, if you have multiple PhixFlow instances; see Multiple PhixFlow Webapps.
The logback.xml file is in:
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<tomcat_installation_base>/webapps/<instance_name>/WEB-INF/classes/logback.xml |
For example:
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/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/phixflow/WEB-INF/classes/logback.xml |
Logging Data Movement Into and Out of PhixFlow Models
The PhixFlow webapp log files can include the activity of analysis modelling objects that move data, such as pipes, collectors and exporters. To enable logging for modelling objects, tick the System Logging Configuration option Allow Logging. Then:
Anchor setPhixFlowLogRetention setPhixFlowLogRetention
Setting the retention policy
setPhixFlowLogRetention | |
setPhixFlowLogRetention |
The logback configuration includes a setting maxHistory
to remove PhixFlow logs after a specified number of days. This is set for each type of log file. Note that these settings apply only to the log files generated by PhixFlow, through logback, and do not apply to the log files that are produced by Tomcat itself (see Tomcat and Java Log Files below). In most cases, however, the files produced by Tomcat do not become very large. If you need help managing these, please contact support@phixflow.com.
In most cases the files generated by PhixFlow through logback are phixflow.log
and security.log
. In this case, the logback.xml
file will include the following snippets. Update the maxHistory
setting in each to meet your log retention requirements.
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<appender name="FILE" class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender">
<file>logs/phixflow.log</file>
<rollingPolicy class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.TimeBasedRollingPolicy">
<!-- daily rollover -->
<fileNamePattern>logs/phixflow.%d{yyyy-MM-dd}.log</fileNamePattern>
<maxHistory>30</maxHistory>
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<appender name="SECURITY" class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender">
<file>logs/security.log</file>
<rollingPolicy class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.TimeBasedRollingPolicy">
<!-- daily rollover -->
<fileNamePattern>logs/security.%d{yyyy-MM-dd}.log</fileNamePattern>
<maxHistory>30</maxHistory>
</rollingPolicy> |
Changing the Logging Level
When investigating problems, you can change the logging level set in logback.xml
. If you are working with the PhixFlow support team, they can advise you about what to change. Changes to logback.xml take effect within one or two minutes, without having to restart the Tomcat server.
logback.xml
contains lines with the form: <logger name="name" level="level" />
where level
is one of:
error
- reports errors onlydebug
- reports more details.
For example: <logger name="com.accipia.centerview.util.security" level="debug" />
Edit logback.xml to change the logging level to debug
for the required logger and then rerun the activity that has the problem. Then, check the more detailed output in phixflow.log.
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With additional debug information, PhixFlow will generate very large log files. Remember to reset the logging level when you have solved your problem and you no longer need the debug information. |
Tomcat and Java Log Files
Where to look
TomcatIn most cases you will not need to look at these log files, but PhixFlow support may ask you to provide these when investigating an issue.
Tomcat log files
Tomcat generates a set of log files, including:
- manager.<date>.log
- localhost_access_log.<date>.txt
- localhost.<date>.log
- host-manager.<date>.log
- catalina.out and catalina.<date>.log
Configuration
You can configure the Tomcat access log, localhost_access_log.<date>.txt in $TOMCAT/conf/server.xml (this is the default location). By default, the access log does not include information about the PhixFlow user making a request. To add the PhixFlow user details to the access log, specify %{username}s
in the log file configuration message pattern.
- tomcat-stdout.<date>.log
- tomcat-stderr.<date>.log
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Java generates GC (Garbage Collection) files with the file name format:
- gc-yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss.log
where yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss is the start time of the Tomcat process. Therefore, there may be a number of files like this if you have restarted Tomcat several times since the logs directory was cleared.
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In addition to viewing the log files in the <tomcat_installation_base>/
logs
directory you can download a zip file of all or selected log files.
- Click
to open the Administration menu.Insert excerpt _administration _administration nopanel true - Select Other Options → Download Log Files. PhixFlow opens a window prompting you to enter file names.
- Enter file names, optionally using an asterisk * as a wildcard. Files you may want to download are:
- generated by PhixFlow (you may have configured different names for different instances)
- phixflow.log
- phixflow.log.<date>
- security.log
- security.log.<date>
- generated by Tomcat and Java
- manager.<date>.log
- localhost_access_log.<date>.txt
- localhost.<date>.log
- host-manager.<date>.log
- catalina.out and catalina.<date>.log
- tomcat-stdout.<date>.log
- tomcat-stderr.<date>.log
- gc-yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss.log
- generated by PhixFlow (you may have configured different names for different instances)
- Click
to start the download process. PhixFlow zips the specified log files into a single zipped archive. Depending on your system configuration, downloading all log files may take some time and will produce a large (several GB) zip file.Insert excerpt _dialog_finish _dialog_finish nopanel true - When the download is finished, a blue notification box reports that the file is ready. Click the notification to download the zip file.
PhixFlow finds the location of the server log files using the directories specified in phixflow-logging.xml.