Logging and tracing for the IBM BPM on Cloud operating environment

To troubleshoot a problem with your environment, you can use the logging and tracing capabilities provided by IBM® Business Process Manager on Cloud. By investigating the logging and tracing output, you can observe performance, diagnose problems, and gain a general understanding of how your environment works.

Log files typically contain information about the operation of the environment. Generally, you should look at these files periodically to ensure there are no unexpected error or warning situations. Trace files typically contain information that is useful for debugging application or server problems and can help identify specific problems with individual components.

Log levels

Use log levels to control which events are logged. Log levels are cumulative and they are applied to all servers in the operating environment.

The levels you specify determine the events you see when you retrieve a log file or view log data in real time with the Live Log Viewer. To include trace information, use the fine, finer, or finest level. The default level is info.

Table 1. Java log levels
Log level	Description
fatal	A task cannot continue and component, application, and server cannot function.
severe	A task cannot continue but component, application, and server can still function. This level can also indicate an impending unrecoverable error.
warning	A potential or impending error. This level can also indicate a progressive failure, for example, the potential leaking of resources.
audit	A significant event affecting server state or resources.
info	General information outlining the overall task progress.
config	Configuration change or status.
detail	General information detailing subtask progress.
fine	Trace information. General trace, method entry, exit, and return values.
finer	Trace information. Includes the same information as the fine log level and the intermediate results or progress information for Java methods.
finest	Trace information. A more detailed trace that includes all the detail that is needed to debug problems.
all	All events are logged, including those from custom levels. This level can provide more detailed trace information than the finest level.

Retrieving logs

Log data is available for the application cluster, the messaging cluster, and the support cluster. You can retrieve historical log data by using the Log Retrieval option for an environment in the Operating Environment Management page. You can also restrict the events in the log by using logger name filters and WebSphere High Performance Extensible Logging (HPEL) filters. The log file contains data for each of the servers in the cluster.

Limitations:

The format of the date and time values depend on the language setting of your browser.

Date format: The format of the date value might not comply with the International Components for Unicode (ICU) format. For example, if your language is set to Chinese (China) [zh-CN], the format of the date value is YYYY-MM-DD instead of YYYY/MM/DD.
Time format: If your language is set to English (United States) [en-US], use the following format for the time value: hh:mm AM | PM (12-hour system). For all other languages, use the following format: hh:mm (24-hour system).

To monitor log data in real time, use the Live Log Viewer option.