Logging

Logging appliance caching activity can be useful for a number of reasons, such as billing for services rendered. Excelerator lets you specify how often a new log file will be started (rolled over), how long log files will be retained, and what the format of the log files will be. For more information, see Logging in Volera Excelerator 2.3 Administration Guide.

Manually Downloading and Deleting Log Files

Whenever possible, we recommend you use the FTP Log Push feature to download and delete log files. See Using FTP Push to Automatically Download and Delete Log Files in Volera Excelerator 2.3 Administration Guide

If you need to manage your log files manually, you should establish a regular schedule and ensure that all those responsible for downloading and deleting log files know the following:

• When log files are to be downloaded and deleted
• How to determine the name of each log file to be downloaded and deleted
• Where to save the log files

You will want to develop specific procedures for your situation. The following sections contain general ideas for accomplishing these tasks.

Getting Log Filenames

Before you can download or delete a log file, you must know its exact name.

Appliance log filenames can be listed in the browser-based management tool in Monitoring > Cache Logs. They can also be listed from the command line or through a Telnet session using the GET command.

The appliance automatically generates log filenames as follows:

• Six numbers representing the year, month, and day the file was created
• A dash separating the date from a letter identifier
• Letter identifiers running from A through ZZ

  NOTE:  The dash is not included after the letters double (AA-ZZ).

This naming convention accommodates up to 702 log files per day. If the rollover options are set so that all the possible filenames are used in one day, the log file with the ZZ letter identifier is not closed until the start of the next day (unless the logging disk becomes full).

To list log files using FTP, you must know the path to the files. Use the following table to determine the paths to MMS log files.

Table .

Using the Browser-Based Tool to Get Filenames

You can most easily view log filenames in the browser-based management tool. To do so, click Monitoring > Cache Logs. Select a log format, then select a service.

Using FTP to Get Filenames

The Mini FTP Server in version 1.3 and later supports the CWD command for changing to the target log directories. All appliance versions let you use the LS command in connection with full paths to list log files.

For example, the following command lists transparent and forward proxy log files in extended format:

ls log:etc/proxy/data/logs/smc/extended/ 

For a complete list of log file directory paths, see Getting Log Filenames .

Using the Command Line or Telnet to Get Filenames

You can see a list of log filenames from the command line, but you cannot download files from the command line.

The following table presents some command line/Telnet examples.

Table .

Downloading Log Files

Using the Browser-Based Management Tool to Download Log Files

You can download the files in the browser-based management tool as you view them. After you click Download, the browser asks what you want to do with the file. Save it to your designated log file storage location.

Using FTP to Download Log Files

You can use FTP and the GET command to retrieve log files from the storage location. To retrieve a file from storage, you must first obtain the log filename using one of the options explained in Getting Log Filenames .

After you have the log filename, you can transfer the file to your workstation from the storage location. For example, to download a forward proxy common format log file, start an FTP session with the appliance and enter:

get log:/etc/proxy/data/logs/forward/common/filename.log

The filename variable is the name of the log file you are downloading.

NOTE:  You can also use the mget command, but be aware that this command also downloads active log files that are not complete.

NOTE:  The appliance doesn't currently support the FTP server put command.

Deleting Downloaded Log Files

After the log files have been downloaded and saved to another location, delete the files using one of the following options:

• The Delete button in the browser-based management tool
• The DEL command in FTP

Extended Log Field Headers

The following information about field values in extended log files will help you interpret the content of the files:

• Fields within the file are delimited by the tab character.
• A field is of two types: string and non-string.
• String fields are enclosed in quotation marks (").
• If a string field contains a quotation mark ("), that character is repeated once for every occurrence to enable unambiguous file parsing.
• If a string field has no value, it is represented by two quotation marks ("").
• Non-string fields containing no value are represented by a hyphen (-).
• Field headers starting with s- are associated with the appliance.
• Field headers starting with c- are associated with the client/browser.
• Field headers starting with sc are associated with flow from the appliance to the client/browser.
• Field headers starting with cs are associated with flow from the client/browser to the appliance.
• Field headers starting with rs are associated with flow from the server to the appliance.

The information in the following table is supplementary to the W3C Extended Log Format Specification found on the Extended Log File Format Web site. You might find it useful for interpreting the content of extended log field headers.

Table .