MetaMiner Tableau Edition Logs – Introduction¶

Logging is an integral and powerful feature of MMTE. Each MMTE component issues logs about its activity and status. It is vastly important for troubleshooting and diagnosing issues when this component behaves unexpectedly.

All MMTE key components provide logging, namely:

This section goes into deeper review of where to find MMTE logs, what each one means, how to configure logging in a convenient and compatible (with your infrastructure) way, and how to share your logs with Infolytik technical support.

All logs are in industry-standard format and can be handled by your log-processing software if needed:

Rotation: if for some reason you do not want to use MMTE built-in capabilities for log rotation, disable them and rotate MMTE logs by any third-party tool, e. g. logrotate
Collection: if you have a centralized corporate log storage, add MMTE logs to its configuration and send to your Syslog or systemd server
Management: process MMTE logs with Graylog, Elastic Stack, or any other log management software

MetaMiner uses LOGBack framework. Logging configuration is stored in XML files (by default, MetaMiner*.logback.xml) and is available for modification, therefore your possibilities for tuning MMTE logging are limited only by your imagination and expertise. Later in this section we describe where to find and how to edit these configuration files for each MMTE component.

Application Logs¶

All MMTE application logs offer features described in this section.

A single configuration XML file is provided for each MMTE software component. Each configuration contains several appenders and loggers with individual parameters, in other words each MMTE component may write to several different logs with different settings, simultaneously. For more information about LOGBack configuration format, please consult its documentation.

These settings include:

Output media (Appender class in terms of LOGBack): choose logging to console (stdout or stderr, appender class ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender) or to a file (appender class ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender)
Log file name and location (for file appenders)
Rotation & retention rules (RollingPolicy in terms of LOGBack): you can define max volume size (usually 10MB, when your log file exceeds this limit, it will be compressed and archived as a zip file) and max age (usually 14 days)
Severity level (DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, etc)
Event log format (Encoder)
Filters – see Filters in LOGBack docs

Supplementary Logs¶

In addition to application logs, there are additional logs issued by "middleware" used in MMTE software components:

Loader logs: before any MMTE component (being a platform-neutral Java application) starts, there is a loader (native for your operating system, Windows or Mac OS) that starts first, reads your config files, prepares environment, and then loads the MMTE component. Its log helps with understanding which settings from which config files are effective, are there any problems with component launch, etc. Use the following variable in config ini-file to enable loader logging:
```
log=logs\<component>.start.log
```
Garbage collector (GC) logs: standard for Java software. By default, GC logs are disabled. You may want to enable it to investigate unstable work of the application or unexpected RAM consumption. Use the following vmarg system variables to configure it:
```
vmarg.1=-XX:GCLogFileSize=10M
vmarg.2=-Xloggc:logs/gc-<component>-%t.log
vmarg.3=-XX:+UseGCLogFileRotation
vmarg.4=-XX:NumberOfGCLogFiles=64
```

Purging Logs¶

Log files can accumulate to the point where it becomes difficult to navigate through too many of them.

Tip

To avoid low-space-because-of-logs problem, always define a RollingPolicy for all file logs, for example:

<rollingPolicy class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.TimeBasedRollingPolicy">
    <fileNamePattern>logs/clients-activity-%d{yyyy-MM-dd}-%i.log.zip</fileNamePattern>
    <timeBasedFileNamingAndTriggeringPolicy class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.SizeAndTimeBasedFNATP">
        <maxFileSize>10MB</maxFileSize>
    </timeBasedFileNamingAndTriggeringPolicy>
    <!-- keep 90 days' worth of history -->
    <maxHistory>90</maxHistory>
</rollingPolicy>

MMS and MMA¶

There is a Purge Logs command available in MMTE Administrator. However, it is not able to delete all logs as some of them are locked when MMTE Server and MMTE Administrator are running.

Perform the following steps to delete all MMTE Server and MMTE Administrator logs:

Stop MMTE Server.
Exit MMTE Administrator application, if running.
Navigate to the directory where MMS and MMA logs are stored, by default: <METAMINER INSTALLATION DIRECTORY>\server\logs
Backup all files in this directory if needed.
Select all files (press Ctrl-A).
Delete them permanently (press Shift-Delete).
Start MMTE Administrator again if needed.
Start MMTE Server again.

The MMTE Server is now running again. Disk space is cleaned up.

MMC¶

Perform the following steps to delete all MMTE Client logs:

Exit MMTE Client application, if running.
Navigate to the directory where MMC logs are stored, by default: <METAMINER INSTALLATION DIRECTORY>\client\logs
Backup all files in this directory if needed.
Delete them by selecting all files (Ctrl-A) and then permanent-delete (Shift-Delete).
Start MMTE Client again if needed.

The MMTE Client is now running again. Disk space is cleaned up.

Sending Logs¶

MMS and MMA¶

There is a Create Log Bundle command available in MMTE Administrator. However, it can bundle MMTE Server and MMTE Administrator logs only.

Perform the following steps to bundle and email MMTE Server and MMTE Administrator logs to Infolytik Technical Support manually:

Log in to your MMTE Server host.
Navigate to the directory where MMS and MMA logs are stored, by default: <METAMINER INSTALLATION DIRECTORY>\server\logs
Select all files, right-click them, and choose Send to file (compressed zip) from the context menu.
Go to the MMTE Server host desktop, locate the newly created zip file and email this to support@infolytik.com

Tip

Watch this video:

MMC¶

Perform the following steps to bundle and email MMTE Client logs to Infolytik Technical Support manually:

Log in to your MMTE Client host.
Open MMTE Client.
Choose File – Open MetaMiner Log Folder from the MMC main menu.

The directory where MMC logs are stored (by default, <USER HOME DIRECTORY>\AppData\Roaming\MetaMiner\logs) is opened in a new window.
Select all files, right-click them, and choose Send to file (compressed zip) from the context menu.
Go to the MMTE Client host desktop, locate the newly created zip file and email this to support@infolytik.com

Tip

Watch this video: