AIX® client logging and tracing

This topic describes the logging and tracing capabilities available on SAN File System AIX clients.

Use the stfsdebug command and the syslog facility to enable tracing and logging on the SAN File System AIX client.

Syslog facility

The SAN File System client generates both log and trace messages, which are routed through the syslog facility on the AIX operating system. The syslog facility captures log and trace output from the kernel as well as other operating system services.

By default, the syslog facility discards all kernel output. However, you can configure the syslog facility to specify a destination for the messages by modifying /etc/syslog.conf.
  • Specifying a file as the destination.
    You can specify a file to receive kernel messages, such as /var/adm/ras/messages. To specify that file, perform the following steps:
    1. Create /var/adm/ras/messages if it does not already exist. You can use the AIX touch command to create an empty file.
    2. Edit /etc/syslog.conf.
    3. Insert this line:

      kern.debug /var/adm/ras/messages

      You can also redirect the kern.debug to /var/spool/mqueue/syslog instead of /var/adm/ras/messages by specifying that directory instead. Create the /var/spool/mqueue/syslog file first by using the touch command.

    4. Restart the syslogd daemon.
      kill -hup syslogd_PID
      Refer to either AIX 5L Version 5.1 Commands Reference, Volume 5 or AIX 5L Version 5.2 Commands Reference, Volume 5, s-u for more information about the syslogd daemon.
  • Specifying the console as the destination.
    To specify the console as the destination for kernel messages, perform the following steps:
    1. Edit /etc/syslog.conf.
    2. Insert this line:

      kern.debug /dev/console

    3. Restart the syslogd daemon.
      kill -hup syslogd_PID
      Refer to either AIX 5L Version 5.1 Commands Reference, Volume 5 or AIX 5L Version 5.2 Commands Reference, Volume 5, s-u for more information about the syslogd daemon.

When you specify kern.debug as shown in the previous examples, all levels of kernel output are routed because debug is the lowest priority level of kernel output. You could specify a different level of output, such as kern.info to show just informational messages.

The following example messages show the format of log messages:

Apr 21 07:43:50 aixclient1 unix: STFS: disk configuration process created
   with PID = 13348
Apr 21 07:43:50 aixclient1 unix: STFS: cleaner process created with PID 12028
Apr 21 07:43:50 aixclient1 unix: STFS: CSM process created with PID 10860

The following example messages show the format of trace messages:

Apr 28 13:17:09 aixclient1 unix: STFS: 1051550182.439290  50337 STFS 
   traceBuf_daemonize: going to sleep till shutdown
Apr 28 13:17:09 aixclient1 unix: STFS: 1051550182.448769 196267 STFS CSM 
   OS-dependent services initialized.
Apr 28 13:17:09 aixclient1 unix: STFS: 1051550182.448827 196267 STFS Pager 
   Strategy initialized.
Apr 28 13:17:09 aixclient1 unix: STFS: 1051550182.448875 196267 STFS GFS 
   hooks initialized.
Apr 28 13:17:09 aixclient1 unix: STFS: 1051550182.448969 196267 STFS 
   doInit(): system Initialized

Parent topic: Client diagnostic tools

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