Log files for Rational DOORS and Rational DOORS Web Access

You can use log files to troubleshoot issues that occur in the IBM® Rational® DOORS® database server, client, and interoperation server, and in the Rational DOORS Web Access server and message broker.
Depending on your configuration, these logging tools are available to diagnose unexpected behavior:
  • Diagnostic log for the client
  • Database server transaction logging
  • Client transaction logging
  • Rational DOORS Web Access server, interoperation server, and message broker logging
  • Application message logging and the data collection utility

Diagnostic log for the Rational DOORS client

The client has a built-in logging mechanism that records any unusual events that occur as a result of an internal error during your session. To view the diagnostic log, click Help > Show Diagnostic Log. If necessary, you can copy the information from the output window and save it as a local text file.

To record a more detailed log, you can also enable extra transaction-based logging on the client and database server. For more information, see the next sections.

Database server logging for Rational DOORS

The database server provides a logging capability that can record activity at different levels of detail. By default, this logging is not enabled because it can increase processor usage for transactions and slow the speed to complete a requested function, or degrade the overall performance. The details in the output log are based on the log level value that you set. The values range from level 1, the most terse, to level 6, the most verbose. Before you turn on server logging, check with IBM Software Support to determine which level is necessary to resolve the problem.

Table 1. Logging levels
Log level Log information details
1 Connections, disconnections, and problem packets
2 Connections, disconnections, and packet types
3 Connections, disconnections, packet types, and packet arguments in compact format
4 Connections, disconnections, packet types, and packet arguments in verbose format
5 Only data cache operations
6 Connections, disconnections, data cache operations, packet types, and packet arguments in verbose format
To help identify an unspecified error, you might need to start logging at level 6 to capture all activity. After database logging is enabled and you reproduce the behavior, send the generated log file to IBM Software Support and disable logging as described in the server logging help topic. Enabling transaction logging in the Rational DOORS database server
Note: Enable database logging for only limited diagnostic periods. To turn off logging without shutting down your server, set the log level value to 0 by using the -serverlogging dbadmin command; for example, dbadmin -d 36677@IBMEDSERV -serverlogging 0.

Client logging for Rational DOORS

You can enable a logging capability to troubleshoot connection issues to the database server. From the computer with the issue, open the Rational DOORS client and run a DXL command to enable client logging and generate a local log file. When you reproduce the behavior, send the generated log file to IBM Software Support and disable logging as described in the client logging help topic. Enabling transaction logging in the Rational DOORS Rational DOORS client
Note: The log does not contain module or object data that might be content-sensitive information; it contains only the file transaction details. If DXL security is enabled, you must be a user with permission to edit and run DXL.../../com.ibm.doors.configuring.doc/topics/t_setupdxlsecurity.html#t_setupdxlsecurity

Logging for the Rational DOORS interoperation server and the Rational DOORS Web Access server and message broker

By default, the Rational DOORS Web Access components provide Info-level log records. At the Info level, the log records contain informational messages that describe the progress of the application at high level. To diagnose issues with your installation, you can enable components to run in debug mode. At the Debug level, the log records contain more detailed informational events that are useful for debugging an application.

The Rational DOORS interoperation server and the Rational DOORS Web Access server and message broker provide Info-level log records in these directories:
  • DWA_INSTALL_DIR\broker\data\activemq.log
  • DWA_INSTALL_DIR\server\festival\logs

    If you need more detailed information to diagnose issues, enable Debug-level logging. To set up enhanced logging, see the related links for Rational DOORS Web Access. There are multiple log files in the logs directory.

    To diagnose an issue start with these files:
    • festival.log contains every log message written by the Rational DOORS Web Access server.
    • request.log is used to verify requests are actually received. This is useful when dealing with processes that span multiple applications.
    • response.log is used to confirm responses were returned to the invoking application. This is useful for confirming the received request finished and returned a result.
    Error messages are written to different logs depending on how they originated. Most errors are written to exception.log but the other error log files can also be used. There are 3 error log files:
    • exception.log
    • error_view.log
    • error_misc.log

Application message logging and the data collector utility

Version 9.4 introduced application message logging that is based on Apache log4cxx logging services. You can limit the log file size, set up the automatic cleanup of old files, choose the format of output log files, and change the log level and the log configurations without restarting the server. The configuration file is monitored every 60 seconds to detect changes.

Five levels of logging exist, which listed from lowest to highest are Debug, Info, Warn, Error, and Fatal. Each level logs information for that level and all higher levels. For example, the Warn level includes information from the Warn, Error, and Fatal modes.

Earlier versions of Rational DOORS required manual iterative gathering of environment and resource information along with diagnostic logs during the initial troubleshooting phase. With the introduction of application messaging in version 9.4, you can run a command-line data collection tool to collect logs that are generated according to the application messaging configuration instructions. The data collection tool also creates 3 text files:
  • readme.txt provides clarity on the usage when the problem occurs.
  • problemDetails.txt is a template file in which you can manually enter problem details.
  • collectedInformation.txt is record of automatically collected information about the operating system, Rational DOORS product information, supported dynamic linked library files (.DLL), and the config.ini file.
For information about setting up log files, see these topics:

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