log parameter

Use log to enable logging data for monitoring, debugging, diagnostics, troubleshooting, security, auditing performance optimization, visibility, and historical analysis. The IBM® Sterling Intelligent Promising by default writes application level logs to console. However, you can choose to redirect these logs to Kafka by using Log4j2 Kafka appender.

Default console logging

Console logging is enabled by default. To access the logs, use kubectl or oc commands. When a container is restarted, deleted, or re-created, the old logs are cleared.

Log4j2 Kafka appender logging

Use the Log4j2 Kafka appender to send log messages to a Kafka topic. To use the Log4j2 Kafka appender, you must have a Kafka cluster that is set up and running. All the IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising services have inbuilt support for the Lo4j2 Kafka appender.

The following table explains the optional properties that are applicable for log.
Property Default value Value type Required Description
logChannels CONSOLE string No By default, console logging is enabled. If you wish to use the Log4j2 Kafka appender for logging, set the logChannel value to KAFKA.
logLevel INFO string No Specify this property to override the log level at the individual server level. Available options are OFF, FATAL, ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG, TRACE, ALL. For more information, see #ConfigCRDProperties__types.
logTopic string No If you select Kafka for logging, specify the topic to which you want to log the data. logTopic is not applicable for the default console logging.

If you are using two Kafka clusters, one for the application and another for logging, specify loggingContactPoints in the externalServices custom resource for Kafka. Also, in the secret, add the Kafka properties that are prefixed with log_. For more information, see Creating a secret.

If you want to use the same contactPoints that you defined for the application, then do not define loggingContactPoints. By default contactPoints is used to push logs to a Kafka topic. For more information about Kafka, see loggingContactPoints in kafka parameter.

Custom attributes in log metadata

The logging utilities include following custom attributes to enhance debugging capabilities for default console and Log4j2 Kafka appender logging.
DATACENTER
Name of the compute cluster where you host and manage Sterling Intelligent Promising deployment. For example, Dublin_data_center.
APP_NAME
Name of the application service that you are using. Allowed values can be rules, cas, search, and other services.
COMPONENT_NAME
Indicates whether the component is an API server or a backend server.
NODE_NAME
Hostname of the worker node in the cluster.
POD_NAME
Name of the pod.
POD_IP
Private IP of the pod.