Collecting WebSphere Application Server log files

You have an option on whether you want to collect all required WebSphere® Application Server log files.

Before you begin

In order to use the date and time based log entry filtering mechanism, ensure that your log file format will create the date and time format pattern.

About this task

The pimSupport.sh script uses the ${WAS_HOME}/bin/collector.sh command to collect the WebSphere Application log files. In a typical InfoSphere® MDM Collaboration Server instance with WebSphere Application Server as the Web server, the log files are packaged and stored in the ApplicationServer directory. As a result, all of the WebSphere Application Server log files are kept in a JAR file which is located in the ApplicationServer/Logs directory. This JAR file contains all of the WebSphere Application Server log files such as native_stderr.log and SystemOut.log.

The pimSupport.sh script file provides an option to collect all InfoSphere MDM Collaboration Server and WebSphere Application Server log files. By collecting all of the log files, this will ease data collection as the WebSphere Application Server log files have shown to be important in investigating issues.

You have an option on whether you want to extract only log data of the last couple of days or for a specified time range. Any time consuming transfers of unneeded data can now be avoided. Usually, log files are collected periodically, therefore, those files collected usually contain large volumes. You may receive many months worth of log files. You can now use the timestamp option with the --collectpimlogs command to gather log files within a specified time frame. The fromtime and totime options depend on the ConversionPattern specification given in the $TOP/etc/default/log.xml or $TOP/etc/default/log_cbe_pattern. xml file to understand the structure of the log entries. The log_format parameter in the $TOP/etc/default/common.properties specifies which one of these files are used.
Note: Do not modify the ConversionPattern string in the file which is associated with thelog_format parameter before the time-based filtering mechanism is used to collect the log entries. Doing so can lead to unpredictable errors.

Procedure

  1. Open a command prompt.
  2. Type pimSupport.sh --collectpimlogs=[all | appsvr] to collect all of the InfoSphere MDM Collaboration Server and WebSphere Application Server log files.
  3. Optional: To collect data within a specified time range, open a command prompt and type --collectpimlogs=all [[--fromtime=<MM_dd_yyyy__HH_mm_SS>] --totime=<MM_dd_yyyy__HH_mm_SS>] where --fromtime is the start date, --totime is the end date where MM stands for the two numeric digit month, dd for the two digit day, yyyy for the four digit year, HH for the two digit hour, mm for the two digit minute, and SS for the two digit second. You will receive the log files between these two time periods.

Last updated: 21 May 2017