Question

I need to increase the logging level for one of the BA (PBA containers. How can I obtain correct container name and change the verbosity?

Answer

Note: the procedure described below is valid for BA 5.1, 5.4, 5.5. For BA 6.0.x please refer to kb #125651.

The list of installed PBA containers can be obtained using the command below (on Linux):

#service pba status

On Windows installation launch Services Manager and find Services that are named according to the following template:

PBA CONTAINER_NAME Container

Use the file /usr/local/bm/etc/ssm.conf.d/CONTAINER_NAME.conf on Linux or %SSMROOT%/etc/ssm.conf.d/CONTAINER_NAME.conf on Windows (%SSMROOT% can be obtained using the command "set | findstr SSMROOT" in command line) to configure log level for the specific container with the name CONTAINER_NAME.

If there is no file CONTAINER_NAME.conf, then create the new file from scratch.

Add/change the parameters DEBUG_LEVEL and TRACE_LEVEL in the section [environment] (add the section itself if needed). See an example below with the default values for these parameters:

[environment]
DEBUG_LEVEL=3
TRACE_LEVEL=3

The most detailed logs will be generated with DEBUG_LEVEL set to 7.

Restart container after having adjusted its log level for the changes to take effect:

  • On Linux:

    # /etc/init.d/pba restart CONTAINER_NAME

  • On Windows

    ssm restart CONTAINER_NAME

PBA log level is an integer value from 0 to 7:

  • 0 - FATAL, only fatal error that cannot be, even theoretically, processed by the application, for example, a system error like 'unable to allocate memory' are written to the log.
  • 1 - ERR, any error that can be theoretically processed by the application, for example, by the caller, but the module which caught it cannot process the error, is written to log.
  • 2 - WARN, any error that was caught and processed by the module.
  • 3 - NOTE, is used for logging key application execution points, like incoming RPC calls.
  • 4 - TRACE, is the DEFAULT logging level. Diagnostic messages are displayed by calling 'tracing arguments'.
  • 5 - INFO, records the information about key code branching points, e.g. calls to external systems with their addresses.
  • 6 - DEBUG, records all key code points with the data, for example, 'entering critical section' with the value of mutex used. At this level, database statements are recorded. The level is often used for troubleshooting.
  • 7 - ALL, is the last chance before starting a debugger data values, for example, it requires full response text from external systems or data fetched from the database. Rarely used for troubleshooting as a lot of excessive data might appear in the log.

The logs can be obtained in the following location:

/usr/local/bm/log/ on Linux

%PBA installation path%\log on Windows (By default - C:\Program Files\Parallels\PBA\log)

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