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Log files

Application issues

Pega Platform™ writes errors, warnings, and other debug information to a collection of log files. System administrators monitor log files to maintain system health and identify potential application or system issues. System architects can review log files to investigate application issues during development, improving application quality.

Log files

Logs capture notifications of events ranging from routine system status to severe errors that can cause applications to quit unexpectedly. Each log is managed by an appender, which determines the type of events written to the log file. The available log files vary, depending on the appenders configured in the system settings. The following log files are commonly configured on Pega Platform systems.

  • The PEGA log contains warnings, errors, and information messages about internal operations. This log also called the console log or system log is used for debugging the application. 
  • The ALERT log contains performance-related alerts triggered when an operation exceeds the specified performance threshold.
  • 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 on the Pega Platform node through URL tampering.
  • The BIX log contains entries generated by the Business Intelligence Exchange (BIX) during extract operations. BIX is an optional add-on product that extracts transactional data from the Pega database into formats suitable for exporting to a reporting data warehouse, operational data store (ODS), or other downstream processes.
  • The SERVICES-PAL log contains performance data saved from services.
  • The CLUSTER log contains information about the setup and run-time behavior of the cluster.
Note: Pega Platform manages logs based on the appenders configured in the prlog4j2.xml configuration file for the node.

Check your knowledge with the following interaction.

The Log Files tool

Use the Log Files tool to view and download log files maintained by Pega Platform. You access the Log Files tool in Dev Studio from the Configure > System > Operations landing page. The Log Files tool lists the appenders that are active on the system. For each appender, the tool provides links to view or download the log file. You can download log files as unformatted text files, or as compressed files using the ZIP compression format.

Note: Downloading a log file requires administrator credentials for the application server that hosts Pega Platform.
Log file list
Tip: You can also view log files using an external log viewer, such as Kibana. For more information about viewing log files in an external viewer, see the Pega Community article Viewing log files in an external log viewer.

In the following image, click the + icons to learn more about viewing log contents using the Log files tool.

PegaRULES Log Analyzer (PLA)

The PegaRULES Log Analyzer (PLA) is a standalone web application that developers and system administrators can use to view consolidated summaries of system log data.

Use the PLA to test new or reconfigured Pega applications during user acceptance testing (UAT), performance and stress testing, and immediately after deployment into a production environment. Testing reconfigured applications during UAT, during performance testing, and right after deployment is important because performance, stability, and scaling issues are most likely to occur during these times.

The PLA consolidates and summarizes the ALERT, PEGA, and Garbage Collection (GC) logs. The log data provides key information about operational and system health that developers and system administrators can use to quickly identify, diagnose, and address performance issues.

Tip: The PLA is available from the Marketplace on Pega Community. For more information about the PegaRULES Log Analyzer (PLA), see the Pega Community Marketplace overview PegaRULES Log Analyzer

The Logging Level Settings tool

For each system event, the prlog4j2.xml configuration file defines the threshold for determining which events to record in the logs. Events at only the selected logging level or higher are recorded. For example, if an event is configured with the ERROR logging level, only FATAL or ERROR events are noted in the log, while INFO events are ignored. In a multi-node Pega system, you can create separate prlog4j2.xml files for each node.

Note: Rulesets and the Pega class hierarchy are irrelevant to logging. If an appender includes logging events for an activity named Data-Party.Research and your system includes several activities of that name, executions on the current node of any of these activities may produce logged events.

To temporarily override the severity settings in the prlog4j2.xml file for the current node, use the Logging Level Settings tool. Changes made with the Logging Level Settings tool do not write to the prlog4j2.xml file for the node, and logging on other nodes is unaffected. Changes made with the tool take effect immediately and remain in force until the server on the node is stopped, or until you or another developer uses the tool again to reset the logging level.

Tip: When debugging an activity, you can use the Log-Message method with the logging level set to InfoForced to add an event to the PEGA log regardless of settings in the prlog4j2.xml file or the Logging Levels Settings tool. To reduce log entries and improve performance in production systems, remove InfoForced steps or convert them to comments when you finish debugging the activity.

 


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