Track activities and events > Troubleshooting with the log4j file

Troubleshooting with the log4j file

The properties in the log4j.properties file control the level of messages written to Activator system log files. By changing levels, you control the volume of messages written to the logs. Changing levels can be useful in troubleshooting.

System logs contain formatted, time-stamped information reported by various components of the application. Activator uses the Apache Jakarta Project's log4j framework to format and manage the logs. Logs are generated by each Java virtual machine during runtime.

The log4j.properties file is located in <install directory>\conf. You can edit this file to generate debug level events in Activator log files.

You do not need to restart the server after changing levels for message categories. You do need to restart the server if you add or delete a property.

Caution: Using log files to monitor processing or to troubleshoot requires advanced knowledge of the system.

The logging level settings you can use in this file are, from lowest to highest verbosity:

These four logging levels are cumulative: Error messages are included at the warn level, both error and warn messages are included at the info level, and everything is logged at the debug level. The debug level also produces more details per message.

Changing the log level of a category changes the level of all categories beneath it that do not have a logging level explicitly specified. For example, setting category “com.foo” to debug also sets “com.foo.fum” to debug, unless there is an explicit entry for “com.foo.fum.”

The following list describes commonly used categories, from general to more specific. In the event that you are troubleshooting issues with the assistance of Axway support, you may be asked to add even more specific categories, not listed here.

Once you set a category to a different level (for example, from info to warn), the level remains in effect until you set the category to something else. Removing or commenting out the category does not reset its level, unless the server is restarted. For this reason, if you add a category and set it to a verbose level (for example, debug), we recommend that when you are done debugging, you reset it to the info level, rather than removing the added category. Otherwise, you would have to wait until the server is restarted for the verbose logging to stop.

You can change the levels of the following message categories.

Server messages

Database messages

These are messages related to the database interface, Kodo. Typically these properties should only be changed under direction of technical support.

HTTP messages

To troubleshoot HTTP issues, change the levels of all of the following properties to debug.

FTP messages

To troubleshoot FTP issues, change the levels of all of the following properties to debug.

SFTP client messages

To troubleshoot issues for trading with partners using external SFTP servers, change the levels of all of the following properties to debug.

SFTP server messages

To troubleshoot issues for trading with partners using embedded SFTP servers, change the levels of all of the following properties to debug.

PeSIT server messages

To troubleshoot issues for trading with partners using embedded PeSIT servers, change the level of the following property to debug.

OFTP server messages

To troubleshoot issues for trading with partners using embedded OFTP servers, change the level of the following property to debug.

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