Log files

Pega writes errors, warnings, and other debug information to log files. Logs track exceptions and other events that impact your application and provide valuable insight into their cause. Each log is managed by an appender, which determines the type of events written to the log file. Pega manages logs based on the appender configuration in the prlog4j2.xml file for the node.

In Dev Studio, logs are available from the Configure > System > Operations landing page. Depending on your settings, you may see the following log files:

• The PEGA log contains warnings, errors, and information messages about internal operations. This file, also referred to as the Console log or System log, is used for debugging the application. By default, the PEGA log is filtered to entries that match the current operator ID.
• The ALERT log contains performance-related alerts. Use the PLA tool to parse and summarize this file into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. For more information, see the help topic Understanding Alerts.
• The ALERTSECURITY log contains alerts (identified by the prefix SECU) that suggest improper configuration of Internet Application Composer facilities, or overt attempts to bypass system security features through URL tampering. For more information, see the article Alerts, alert analysis tools and usage guidelines on Pega Community.
• The BIX log is created by the Business Intelligence Exchange during extract operations. BIX is an optional add-on product that provides the extract functions of an ETL (extract, transform, and load) utility.
• The SERVICES-PAL log contains performance data saved from services. For more information, see the help topic Performance tool — Statistics for services in the SERVICES-PAL log.
• The CLUSTER log contains information about the setup and run-time behavior of the cluster.

When you view a log file, Pega displays only lines of the log for your own Operator ID (for all your sessions on this node), in pages of 25 lines each. You may view or set log filtering criteria. To view other entries, you have the option to change or remove the filter.

Use the Logging Level Settings tool to control which logging events appear in the PEGA log. The prlog4j2.xml configuration file defines the levels of logging events. In a multinode Pega system, you can create separate prlog4j2.xml files for each node.

You may temporarily override the severity settings in the prlog4j2.xml file for the current node. When you make this temporary change, the prlog4j2.xml file is not altered. Logging on nodes other than your current node is unaffected.

For example, you can change the logging level for activities in the Work- class from FATAL to DEBUG. After that, olog() calls in Java steps that have a severity setting of DEBUG or lower appear in the PEGA log.

Your changes take effect immediately and remain in force until the server on the node is stopped, or until you or another developer uses the Logging Level Settings tool again to reset the logging level.

For more information about how to change the diagnostic logging level in a Pega application, see the help topic Logging Level Settings tool.