Agents Administration - Tests
 

Default Parameters for XchgASyncCSLogTest

In order to enable administrators to quickly troubleshoot current issues with ActiveSync, the eG Exchange Monitor intelligently reads ActiveSync-related errors/warnings/general information or status messages related to ActiveSync commands captured recently (i.e., in the last 5 minutes) from the client access server's log file and writes them to the ActiveSynchLog.log file it creates in the <EG_AGENT_INSTALL_DIR>\agent\logs directory. At specified intervals, this test scans the ActiveSynchLog.log file for configured patterns of errors and reports the number and nature of such errors (if found).

Note:

At least one of the following tests should be running and reporting metrics for this test to work:

  • XchgASyncServerTest Test
  • XchgASyncDeviceTest Test
  • XchgASyncUserTest Test
  • XchgASyncPolicyTest Test
  • XchgASyncAgentTest Test

This page depicts the default parameters that need to be configured for the XchgASyncCSLogTest.

  • The TEST PERIOD list box helps the user to decide how often this test needs to be executed.

  • By default, the full path to the ActiveSynchLog.log file is set in the ALERTFILE text box.

  • Enter the specific patterns of alerts to be monitored in the SEARCHPATTERN text box. The pattern should be in the following format: <PatternName>:<Pattern>, where <PatternName> is the pattern name that will be displayed in the monitor interface and <Pattern> is an expression of the form - *expr* or expr or *expr or expr*, etc. A leading ‘*’ signifies any number of leading characters, while a trailing ‘*’ signifies any number of trailing characters.

    For example, say you specify ItemNotFound:Item* in the SEARCHPATTERN text box. This indicates that “ItemNotFound” is the pattern name to be displayed in the monitor interface. “Item*” indicates that the test will monitor only those lines in the alert log which start with the term “Item”. Similarly, if your pattern specification reads: UserDisabledForSync:*Sync, then it means that the pattern name is UserDisabledForSync and that the test will monitor those lines in the alert log which end with the term Sync.

    A single pattern may also be of the form e1+e2, where + signifies an OR condition. That is, the <PatternName> is matched if either e1 is true or e2 is true.

    Multiple search patterns can be specified as a comma-separated list. For example: ItemNotFound:Item*, UserDisabledForSync:*Sync

    If you want all the messages in a log file to be monitored, then your specification would be: <PatternName>:*.

  • Specify two numbers in the format x:y in the LINES text box. This means that when a line in the alert file matches a particular pattern, then x lines before the matched line and y lines after the matched line will be reported in the detail diagnosis output (in addition to the matched line). The default value here is 0:0. Multiple entries can be provided as a comma-separated list.

    If you give 1:1 as the value for LINES, then this value will be applied to all the patterns specified in the SEARCHPATTERN field. If you give 0:0,1:1 as the value for LINES and if the corresponding value in the SEARCHPATTERN filed is like ItemNotFound:Item*, UserDisabledForSync:*Sync, then:

    0:0 will be applied to ItemNotFound pattern
    1:1 will be applied to UserDisabledForSync pattern

  • Provide a comma-separated list of patterns to be excluded from monitoring in the EXCLUDEPATTERN text box. For example *critical*, *exception*. By default, the EXCLUDEPATTERN parameter is set to ‘none’.

  • By default, the UNIQUEMATCH parameter is set to FALSE, indicating that, by default, the test checks every line in the log file for the existence of each of the configured SEARCHPATTERNS. By setting this parameter to TRUE, you can instruct the test to ignore a line and move to the next as soon as a match for one of the configured patterns is found in that line. For example, assume that Pattern1:*fatal*,Pattern2:*error* is the SEARCHPATTERN that has been configured. If UNIQUEMATCH is set to FALSE, then the test will read every line in the log file completely to check for the existence of messages embedding the strings ‘fatal’ and ‘error’. If both the patterns are detected in the same line, then the number of matches will be incremented by 2. On the other hand, if UNIQUEMATCH is set to TRUE, then the test will read a line only until a match for one of the configured patterns is found and not both. This means that even if the strings ‘fatal’ and ‘error’ follow one another in the same line, the test will consider only the first match and not the next. The match count in this case will therefore be incremented by only 1.

  • The ROTATINGFILE flag governs the display of descriptors for this test in the eG monitoring console.

    If this flag is set to true and the ALERTFILE text box contains the full path to a specific (log/text) file, then, the descriptors of this test will be displayed in the following format: Directory_containing_monitored_file:<SearchPattern>. For instance, if the ALERTFILE parameter is set to c:\eGurkha\logs\syslog.txt, and ROTATINGFILE is set to true, then, your descriptor will be of the following format: c:\eGurkha\logs:<SearchPattern>. On the other hand, if the ROTATINGFILE flag had been set to false, then the descriptors will be of the following format: <FileName>:<SearchPattern> - i.e., syslog.txt:<SearchPattern> in the case of the example above.

    If this flag is set to true and the ALERTFILE parameter is set to the directory containing log files, then, the descriptors of this test will be displayed in the format: Configured_directory_path:<SearchPattern>. For instance, if the ALERTFILE parameter is set to c:\eGurkha\logs, and ROTATINGFILE is set to true, then, your descriptor will be: c:\eGurkha\logs:<SearchPattern>. On the other hand, if the ROTATINGFILE parameter had been set to false, then the descriptors will be of the following format: Configured_directory:<SearchPattern> - i.e., logs:<SearchPattern> in the case of the example above.

    If this flag is set to true and the ALERTFILE parameter is set to a specific file pattern, then, the descriptors of this test will be of the following format: <FilePattern>:<SearchPattern>. For instance, if the ALERTFILE parameter is set to c:\eGurkha\logs\*sys*, and ROTATINGFILE is set to true, then, your descriptor will be: *sys*:<SearchPattern>. In this case, the descriptor format will not change even if the ROTATINGFILE flag status is changed.

  • The CASESENSITIVE flag is set to No by default. This indicates that the test functions in a ‘case-insensitive’ manner by default. This implies that, by default, the test ignores the case of your ALERTFILE and SEARCHPATTERN specifications. If this flag is set to Yes on the other hand, then the test will function in a ‘case-sensitive’ manner. In this case therefore, for the test to work, even the case of your ALERTFILE and SEARCHPATTERN specifications should match with the actuals.

  • By default, the ROLLOVERFILE flag is set to false. Set this flag to true if you want the test to support the ‘roll over’ capability of the specified ALERTFILE. A roll over typically occurs when the timestamp of a file changes or when the log file size crosses a pre-determined threshold. When a log file rolls over, the errors/warnings that pre-exist in that file will be automatically copied to a new file, and all errors/warnings that are captured subsequently will be logged in the original/old file. For instance, say, errors and warnings were originally logged to a file named error_log. When a roll over occurs, the content of the file error_log will be copied to a file named error_log.1, and all new errors/warnings will be logged in error_log. In such a scenario, since the ROLLOVERFILE flag is set to false by default, the test by default scans only error_log.1 for new log entries and ignores error_log. On the other hand, if the flag is set to true, then the test will scan both error_log and error_log.1 for new entries.

    If you want this test to support the ‘roll over’ capability described above, the following conditions need to be fulfilled:

    • The ALERTFILE parameter has to be configured only with the name and/or path of one/more alert files. File patterns or directory specifications should not be specified in the ALERTFILE text box.
    • The roll over file name should be of the format: “<ALERTFILE>.1”, and this file must be in the same directory as the ALERTFILE.

  • By default, the OVERWRITTENFILE flag is set to false. Set this flag to true if log files do not ‘roll over’ in your environment, but get overwritten instead. In such environments typically, new error/warning messages that are captured will be written into the log file that pre-exists and will replace the original contents of that log file; unlike when ‘roll over’ is enabled, no new log files are created for new entries in this case. If the OVERWRITTENFILE flag is set to true, then the test will scan the new entries in the log file for matching patterns. However, if the flag is set to false, then the test will ignore the new entries.

  • By default, the ENCODEFORMAT is set to none, indicating that no encoding format applies by default. However, if the test has to use a specific encoding format for reading from the specified ALERTFILE, then you will have to provide a valid encoding format here - eg., UTF-8, UTF-16, etc. Where multiple log files are being monitored, you will have to provide a comma-separated list of encoding formats – one each for every log file monitored. Make sure that your encoding format specification follows the same sequence as your ALERTFILE specification. In other words, the first encoding format should apply to the first alert file, and so on. For instance, say that your alertfile specification is as follows: D:\logs\report.log,E:\logs\error.log, C:\logs\warn_log. Assume that while UTF-8 needs to be used for reading from report.log, UTF-16 is to be used for reading from warn_log. No encoding format need be applied to error.log. In this case, your ENCODEFORMAT specification will be: UTF-8,none,UTF-16.

    Note:

    If your ALERTFILE specification consists of file patterns that include wildcard characters (e.g., /tmp/db/*dblogs*,/tmp/app/*applogs*), then such configurations will only be supported in the ANSI format, and not the UTF format.

  • If UTF-8 encoding is to be used for reading the log files in the configured LOG DIRECTORY, then, set the USEUTF8 flag to true. By default, this flag is set to false.

  • If UTF-16 encoding is to be used for reading the log files in the configured LOG DIRECTORY, then, set the USEUTF16 flag to true. By default, this flag is set to false.

  • The DD FREQUENCY refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD FREQUENCY.

  • Once the necessary values have been provided, clicking on the UPDATE button will register the changes made.

When changing default configurations of tests, the values with “$” indicate variables that will be replaced by the eG system according to the specific server being managed - for instance, $hostName is the host/nickname of the target host, $port is the port number of the server being monitored. E.g., for a server xyz:80, $hostName will be changed automatically by the eG manager to “xyz” and $port will be changed to “80” when configuring a test.