Changing the logging level

Edit online

The logging level for the application can be changed to generate helpful information for identifying and solving issues with this application.

Logging level options are as follows:

ERROR: Shows only error messages. No warnings or informational messages is provided.
WARN: Shows only error and warning messages.
INFO (default): Show all error, warning, and general informational messages.
DEBUG: Shows all messages at the INFO level with extra messages related to application execution.
TRACE: Shows all messages at the DEBUG level with detailed application execution messages.

Warning: Selecting DEBUG or TRACE might result in a large amount of output and negatively impact performance. Do so only upon request from IBM® Software Support.

Docker on Linux Standalone Distributed Gateway
Cluster Distributed Gateway
- Installations using Helm
- Installations using Deployment Files

Docker on Linux Standalone Distributed Gateway

Changing the logging level for the standalone Distributed Gateway requires restarting the application with the --log -level flag. For example:

# Restarting to change the logging level.
# Substitute <log level> with the desired level.
sudo ./zapmctl start --log-level <log level>

# Restart the Distributed Gateway with DEBUG logging enabled
sudo ./zapmctl start --log-level DEBUG

Cluster Distributed Gateway

The method of changing the logging level for the cluster Distributed Gateway depends on whether or not Helm is used. In any case, the logging level for most microservices can be changed individually.

Installations using Helm
Changing the logging level requires an update to the values.yaml file used during installation. The sections transaction-processor, and instana-exporter all accept an optional logLevel entry that accepts one of the above logging levels as its value. To change the logging level, add the following line under the appropriate section(s) where <loglevel> is replaced with the desired level:
```
logLevel: <log level>
```
For example, to change the logging level for the transaction-processor and instana-exporter deployments:
```
transaction-processor: 
  logLevel: "DEBUG"
  # The rest of the existing transaction-processor configuration comes after

instana-exporter: 
  logLevel: "DEBUG"
# The rest of the existing instana-exporter configuration comes after
```
Once the values.yaml file is updated to include the new logging level, run the following command:
```
helm upgrade --namespace <desired project> -f <config yaml> <name> <chart location>
```
For example:
```
helm upgrade --namespace ibm-zapm -f values.yaml zapm ./instana-on-z-tracing-6.1.1-7.tgz
```
Installations using Deployment Files
Changing the logging level requires updating various environment variables in the deployment files for the Distributed Gateway. Each deployment is slightly different. The environment variables already exist in each deployment file; the value needs to be changed to reflect the desired logging level.
- Instana exporter: ZAPM_LOG_LEVEL
- Transaction Processor: ZAPM_LOG_LEVEL. Each deployment's logging level is specified individually. Changing the value of ZAPM_LOG_LEVEL for just the connection-manager deployment will not change the logging level for any of the other components. In total, there are 5 components to update that all use the ZAPM_LOG_LEVEL environment variable:
  - connection-manager
  - event-partitioner
  - span-collector
  - span-factory
  - transaction-factory
  - cdp-factory
Once the updates to all YAML deployment files are made, the changes can be applied by running the following command:
```
oc apply -f <path to deployment files>
```
For example, if all of the deployment files are located in the current directory:
```
oc apply -f ./
```