Log Retention issue in ALM?
Question ID: 108799
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Hello,
I have been tasked with finding out how we can archive and cut down the size of our log files within ALM. Currently we have enormous log files and every couple of days there are newly generated log files as the originals were so huge that new ones were started. I can see that this can be controlled via the Site Admin. but I am not clear on which option takes precedence; the Max Log Lines or the Max Log Days. see It would appear that the problem is with the Max Log Days being set to Unlimited on the Client side, but I am not 100% sure what I am looking at.
Any thoughts or knowledge you an provide to me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
HomerJ

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Posted by (Questions: 379, Answers: 35)
Asked on January 18, 2019 4:06 pm
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Hi HomerJ,

Here is the description from the Admin Guide regarding those settings:

''4. ClicktheMax.LogLineslinktoopentheMaximumLogLinesdialogboxandconfigurethe maximum number of lines that ALM can write to the log file. ALM creates a new log file after the log file reaches the maximum number of lines. The default value is 10,000.
5. ClicktheMax.LogDayslinktoopentheMaximumLogDaysdialogboxandconfigurethe maximum number of days that the ALM server keeps the log file. ALM automatically deletes the log files once the maximum number of days is reached. The default value is Unlimited.
6. ClicktheLogFileLocationlinktochangethedirectorypathofthelogfile.IntheLogFile Location dialog box, type the new location for the log file.''

So the log lines are the amount of lines that will be written to the log file before it closes that file as too large and starts a new file. The days is the amount of log files that if keeps stored before it starts to delete the old files.

I think truthfully neither is really your problem here. What I see many times with clients as the issue is your log level setting. The default level setting is ''Warning'' and if you have anything higher such as ''Debug'' the log files will grow very fast We generally only use the higher settings when we are actively tracking an issue and need to see what is happening. We will recommend the client elevate the level to Debug (click on the hyperlink and then in the presented pop up box change the level to the selected new level and hit OK) and then work normally and try to reproduce the issue. Once we have reproduced and captured the issue being tracked then we recommend that the client reduce the log level back to the default setting of ''Warning''. What is happening is during debug setting, the log file captures every single step and action that is occurring within the system to make the action within ALM occur (this includes user generated steps along with control steps and queries generated within the system and can be very useful to the engineers in troubleshooting issues but most of the data is excessive for daily operations and when the system is running normally). IF you have many users and lots of activity, this log file grows very quickly and can easily over run the available space (I have had clients in the past generating 1GB of log files within hours as they had large users bases and were very active in their ALM environment). We recommend the default level setting of ''Warning'', which only captures Warning and steps generated within the system and Error steps within the system (Error generates even less within the log files but isn't as easy to start a trouble shooting session from as it doesn't capture issues that may elevate later into Errors, that is what the Warning level is for). I guarantee that you have an elevated setting and change the level on all the settings to Warning and your log file generation will decrease significantly. I would change all log levels to the default recommnded.

Then from that point you can decide if the number of days of log files is necessary to keep at unlimited or move to a more reduced level (it would depend on what your operations desire, the default is unlimited and with Warning level set you should see the same log file running for many days and possibly a week or month if everything within the system is operating normally,

I hope this helps,
Dan

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Answered on January 18, 2019 4:30 pm
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