Deriving insights from logs
The following video (2:53) illustrates how to analyze and visualize logs:
Search and analyze logs on the Explorer > Discover tab. The following figure highlights the options on the Discover page that help you in getting to the root cause of an issue:
Permission to view logs
Users can view the log records according to their permissions. As an administrator, use user groups while creating or editing collection policies to restrict access to log records.
The following scenario describes the log collection behavior if you change the user group association in collection policies.
Scenario: What happens if associated user groups are changed in collection policies?
Sarah is an administrator in Apex Global, which uses BMC Helix Log Analytics to collect and analyze logs. Sarah has created the Operators and Administrators user groups to implement role-based access in the system. She has created the following collection policies to collect log data:
- Common collection policy: The Operators and Administrators groups are associated with this policy. The data collected from this policy is visible to users belonging to both groups.
- Restricted collection policy: The Administrators group is associated with this policy. The data collected from this policy is visible only to the Administrators group.
Sarah decides to remove the association of the Operators group from the Common collection policy. In this scenario, these actions happen:
- At the time of the next data ingestion after the group association change, the Operators group can no longer see the data collected by the Common collection policy. However, they can still see the data collected up to the data ingestion.
- The Administrators group continues seeing the data. There is no change in behavior for the Administrators group.
For more information on collection policies, see Creating-collection-policies.
Anomalous log severity
In case of anomalous logs, the log records also display the log severity of the log anomaly.
BMC Helix Log Analytics automatically assigns severity to anomalous log messages depending on the keywords that the message contains.
For example, if a message contains the words error or critical, the anomaly is assigned the High severity.
The following table displays the severity level and its associated keywords:
For more information on anomalous logs, see Detecting-anomalies-from-logs.
Index pattern overview
You use an index pattern to select the data to use and define the properties of the fields while collecting logs. In BMC Helix Log Analytics, by default, an index pattern is created for you. All the logs are collected under this index pattern. You can neither delete this index pattern nor create a new one.
After archiving is enabled, a new index pattern is added to the Discover page in the format logarc_*. All the logs collected since the time archiving is enabled for your tenant are shown in the new index pattern. The data before archiving is enabled continues to show in the earlier index pattern. Archived and restored data are available in the new index pattern only. Therefore, to analyze logs collected after archiving is enabled, use the logarc_* index pattern.
After an anomaly or rare pattern is detected in logs, it is reported in a new index pattern whose format is logml-*.
For more information, see Detecting-anomalies-from-logs.
Options to search for a specific information
Use the following options to search for a specific alphanumeric string:
- Search field: Enter the string that you are looking for in a field. The format is: field_name:"search string". For example, to search for all logs where status 501 is reported, enter status:501.
- Filter: Click Add Filter and select a field. Operators are available as per the data type of the selected field. Enter the string and save the filter. For example, loglevel.keyword is error.
Options to filter search results by time range and date
You get the following options to set the date to narrow down your search results:
- Specify days or hours for which you want to search results. For example, search results for last 15 minutes or last 7 days.
- Set specific date and time (absolute or specific). For example, search results for Jul 18, 2022 18:00 hours till Jul 19, 2022 18:00 hours.
Supported time formats
The log generation time is saved in the @timestamp field. Time of the collected logs must be in the ISO 8601 ZULU format; for example, 2022-02-20T12:21:32.756Z. If the log generation time is specified in any other format, it is saved in the @@timestamp field, and the log collection time is saved in the @timestamp field. The log collection time is available in the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) time zone.
If you are collecting logs by using an external agent like Logstash and Filebeat, the Epoch time format is supported. However, if you are collecting logs by using the Docker, Windows, or Linux connector, the Epoch time format is not supported.
Fields available to filter logs
The fields identified in the logs are displayed in the Available fields section. Click a field and select a value to filter logs based on the field. For example, click the ipAddress field and select an IP address to search for all logs where ipAddress is the selected value. To add a field as a column in the search result, click the + symbol that is shown when you move your mouse over the field name.
After using these options that help you analyze logs, you see the filtered records that require immediate attention:
To save the search
Save the search query that you have created by using the search field, available fields, and time period fields. In future, access the saved search to get similar results.
- Click Save.
- Enter a name.
- To access the saved search, click Open.
To add the saved search to a visualization
- Select Visualize > Create new visualization.
- Select the type of visualization that you want to use.
For example, a line chart. - Select the search that you have saved.
- Apply additional filters to the data and save the visualization.
- To add the visualization to a dashboard:
- Click Dashboard.
- Create a new dashboard or edit an existing one.
- Click Add and select the visualization.
Learn more
Read the following blog to learn how logs help you in understanding the health of your environment, identify issues, and track their root cause: Observability with logs to accelerate MTTR.