Walkthrough: Viewing log files
This walkthrough demonstrates how to use BladeLogic Portal to view log files and other types of text files. This topic includes the following sections:
The video at right demonstrates the process described in this walkthrough. It was created with BladeLogic Portal 2.0. If you are using a later version of BladeLogic Portal, you may detect some differences in the interface.
Introduction
This topic is intended for system administrators. The goal of this topic is to describe a common activity for many operators–viewing log files. System administrators and operators must frequently examine log files and other system-generated files to troubleshoot problems.
BladeLogic Portal provides an Inventory feature that lets you quickly search or browse for servers. When searching, you can enter a text string or search for a server with a specific collection of server properties.
After you find a server that you want to examine, you can navigate the machine's file structure and then display the contents of a text-based file such as a log.
What do I need to get started?
For this walkthrough, you need an account to access BladeLogic Portal.
The type of file you want to examine must be viewable. Using the site definition, the portal administrator specifies the file endings of files that can be viewed. By default, files ending in .log and .txt are viewable.
How to view log files
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1 | Select Inventory. The Inventory View opens.
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2 | Find one or more servers by performing a simple text search. Enter a text string in the Search text box. In this example, we entered 10.20. The text you enter is matched against any text visible on screen, such as any portion of a server's name or description.
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3 | Use the filters at left to refine your search. In the example, notice how the search now produces three servers while the search shown above produces 11.
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4 | Select a server. The Target & Info Actions page opens. By default the Live Browse tab is selected. |
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6 | Search the entire file by entering a text string in the Search text box. In this example we search for ERROR. Search is not case-sensitive. Results of the search are highlighted in orange. You can step through each result by clicking the up or down arrows (or by entering Return or Shift-Return). In this example shown here, we have stepped forward to page 5. |
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7 | Tail the file (that is, display the page that was generated most recently) by clicking _Tail file. After the most recent page displays, the page is updated every eight seconds, so the most recent additions are automatically added to the page. To pause the automatic updates, click the refresh icon |
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8 | Download the log file by clicking Download File. The file is downloaded according to your browser's settings. Often it is easiest to analyze a log file by downloading it so you can use your own tools for examining the text. |
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Wrapping it up
In this topic, you used BladeLogic Portal to gain quick access to a log file. While viewing the file, you searched for for particular text strings and tailed the file.
Where to go from here
To learn more about using the portal's inventory feature, see Searching-server-inventory-and-taking-actions-on-search-results.