Viewing the service log

Service logs are logs written in a binary format. You cannot view a service log directly using a text editor. You should never directly edit the service log, as doing so will corrupt the log.

Before you begin

[IBM i]To move a service log from one machine to another, you must use a mechanism like FTP, which supports binary file transfer. Use the Showlog tool to convert the contents of the service log to a text format that you can then write to a file or dump to the command shell window.

About this task

Run the showlog script to view the contents of the service log as described in the following procedure.

Procedure

  1. Open a shell window on the machine where the service log resides.
  2. Change the directory to app_server_root/bin where app_server_root is the fully qualified path where the WebSphere Application Server product is installed.
  3. Run the showlog script.

    [IBM i]showlog

  4. Run the following showlog script with no parameters to display usage instructions.

    [IBM i]showlog

  5. Format and write the service log contents to a file. 
     showlog service_log_filename output_filename

    If the service log is not in the default location, you must fully qualify the service_log_filename