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This page is for administrators who need to monitor events on the PhixFlow system. 

Overview

The areas of logging you can use to monitor PhixFlow activity are:

  1. User activity and tasks within PhixFlow: use the  System Console.
  2. The PhixFlow webapp activity on the server and network: use the server log files, especially phixflow.log.
  3. Tomcat servlet activity related to PhixFlow; use the Tomcat access log.

These are described in more detail below.

See also Logs for Third-Party Systems.

Activity Within PhixFlow

Where to Look

To find the information about user activity and tasks within PhixFlow, use the  System Console; see System Console.

Configuration

You can configure system logging options in the System Logging Configuration properties. In the top right of the console, right-click  Logging.


Sections on this page

Server Log Files

Where to Look

To find the logged information about PhixFlow webapp activity on the server and network, use the log files saved in the <path>logs directory. You can also download a zip file of all or selected log files; see Downloading Server Log Files, below.

The server log files generated by PhixFlow are:

  • phixflow.log and phixflow.log.<date>
    phixflow.log is the default name. The name and recorded data can be configured in logback.xml.
  • security.log
  • manager.<date>.log
  • localhost_access_log.<date>.txt
  • localhost.<date>.log
  • host-manager.<date>.log
  • catalina.out and catalina.<date>.log

The main log files are phixflow.log and phixflow.log.<date>. This is the default name. The name and recorded data can be configured in logback.xml.

Security.log records:

  • all logouts including: username, session, IP address, whether the user logged out or the session timed out.
  • all login attempts
    • successful login: username, session, IP address of the user
    • failed attempts: username, IP address, and reason for the failure.

If you have multiple instances of PhixFlow hosted under the same Tomcat instance, each PhixFlow instance has a different log file name. You can find out the log file names for different instances in logback.xml.

Configuration

phixflow-logging.xml

phixflow-logging.xml is configured at installation; see Configure phixflow-login.xml. The file contains a list of directories that contain log files. PhixFlow uses these directories when you download log files from the GUI. You only need to change this file as requested by PhixFlow Support.

logback.xml


Use logback.xml is configured at installation; see Configure logback.xml. The installer sets:

  • the default level of event or error logging recorded in the server log files. 
  • the name of the log files generated, if you have multiple PhixFlow instances; see Renaming the Log File.

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.

Some options can generate huge amounts of extra logging, and these will create very large log files.

The logback.xml file is in:

[tomcat installation base]/webapps/[instance name]/WEB-INF/classes/logback.xml

For example:

/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/phixflow/WEB-INF/classes/logback.xml

Change the logging level and then rerun the activity that has the problem. Check phixflow.log to see the additional logging details. 

Remember to reset logback.xml to the standard logging options once your investigation is finished.

If you want to integrate PhixFlow server logs into other logging frameworks, such as Google Cloud's stackdriver, please contact support@phixflow.com.

Downloading Server Log Files

In addition to viewing the log files in the logs directory you can download a zip file of all or selected log files.

In the bottom right, click  Administration to open the Administration menu.

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.

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.

When the download is finished, a blue notification box reports that the file is ready. Click the notification to download the zip file.


Tomcat

Where to look

To find information about Tomcat servlet activity related to PhixFlow, look in the Tomcat access log. This records requests to the server.

  • catalina.out and catalina.<date>.log

Configuration

You can configure the Tomcat access log in $TOMCAT/conf/server.xml (this is the default location). To configure the log to record the PhixFlow user making a request, specify %{username}s in the log file configuration message pattern.

For more information about configuring the Tomcat access log, see Tomcat Configuration Reference → Attributes.

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