Log File Preferences

InterMapper writes information to log files about various events. Use the log files to review the events surrounding a particular problem, helping you to troubleshoot the problem more effectively.

To view an existing log file:

To view and edit the preferences for log files:

  1. From the Edit menu, choose Server Settings... The Server Settings window appears.
  2. Click Log Files. The current Log File settings appear in the right panel.

Setting Preferences for Log Files


The Log File preferences pane shows a list of currently defined log files.

Logging Preferences

The example above shows a typical log file preferences window. It shows the names of the log files, and their rotation intervals.

To add a new log file:

  1. Click click + . The Add Log File window appears.
  2. Set the log file parameters as described below.

To edit preferences for an existing log file:

  1. Click to select the log file.
  2. Click the Pencil tool. The Edit Log File window appears, as shown in the second example below.
  3. Set the log file parameters as described below.

Setting Log File Parameters

When you click + , or when you select a log file definition and then click the Pencil tool, the Add or Edit Log File window appears, as shown below.

Two different examples of log file parameters. The time and date parameters change, depending on the setting of the Start New Log File menu. The Create and Edit Log File windows are identical.

Log File Name - Set the name (actually the prefix) for the log file. You can enter up to 14 characters (see Log File Naming and File Format below.) The file is given a .TXT extension, and can be edited with any text editor.

Start New Log File - Use these parameters to specify how often and at what point in a log cycle the current log file is closed and a new one is opened. This is to break the log files into convenient sizes and/or time epochs. Choose from these options: 

 Delete log files after __ days/weeks - Check this box to force InterMapper to delete old log files automatically after a certain date.

Note: Each time InterMapper starts a new log file, it checks to see if any log files should be deleted. On platforms where the file creation date is available, it is used to determine whether a log file should be deleted. If the creation date is not available, the file's last modification date is used.

Also send messages to syslog server
Click this checkbox to specify that all log file entries be sent to a syslog server. Set the values for: 

Redirecting Log Entries

By default, all entries go to the built-in Event Log file. You can redirect streams of log entries from any InterMapper server to a particular log file (and syslog server). This can be useful, for example, for sending all web access events one file, and all outage events to a different file.

To redirect a log entry stream:

  1. Create a new log file definition for the file you want to receive the log entries, as described above.
  2. From the Edit menu, choose Server Settings... The Server Settings window appears.
  3. In the Server Configuration section of the Server Settings window, click to choose the server whose log entries you want to send to a different log file. The panel for the selected server appears.
  4. In the Send Log File Entries to menu, choose the log file you created to receive the log entries.
  5. Click OK. All log file entries for the selected server are redirected to the new log file.

Log File Naming and File Format

Log files are saved in text format in the InterMapper Settings:InterMapper Logs folder. Each file has a user-defined prefix that describes its function, and ends with a suffix of .yyyymmddhhmm.txt, where the suffix is the (four-digit) year, month, day, hour and minute when the file was created. The prefix can be up to 14 characters in length.

Log File Sources

Log information comes from several sources, including:

Three built-in log files are always present, and cannot be deleted: