Using event logs

Configuration Manager events are logged in event logs. Monitor these logs to detect problems and errors that might occur during processing.

About this task

Content Collector events are logged in various Windows event logs. An event log record consists of an event type (success, warning, informational, or error), an event ID, a description, and an optional binary blob of data. Refer to the table of event IDs for detailed information on what the different collector events are.

Event log records provide more detail than performance counters. However, this detail comes at a cost in memory and processor time. Therefore some events are recorded by incrementing a performance counter instead of creating an event log record.

There are many ways to view, manage, and monitor event logs. The easiest way is to use the basic event viewer that comes with Microsoft Windows. It is part of the system or administrative tools. Run eventvwr.exe to access it.

You can configure a maximum log size and specify the action that should be taken when this limit is reached. To configure the size of an event log file:

1. Run eventvwr.exe to open the Windows Event Viewer.
2. Select the event log that you want to configure.
   • All events that occur in the context of a task route are logged in one event log for this task route. This event log is named CTMS - TaskRouteName, where TaskRouteName is the name of the task route.
   • All events that occur in the context of the Configuration Manager user interface are logged in the CTMS_UI event log.
   • All events that occur in the context of the Restricted Configuration Access Proxy are logged in the Restricted Configuration Access Proxy event log.
   • All other Content Collector events are logged in the main Windows event log named Application.
3. Right-click the event log and select Properties.
4. Specify the maximum log size.
5. Select what action should be taken when the maximum log size is reached.
   • Select Overwrite events as needed when event records are used only as triggers.
   • Select Overwrite events older than ? days to keep event records for the specified number of days.
   • Select Do not overwrite events (clear log manually) to retain all event records. You should set up a script or utility to back up and clear the event log regularly, if you select this option.