WebSphere Quickie
by Volker Weber
How do I tell WebSphere Application Server 4.02 to create rotating logs? This is the relevant definition for stdoutFilename and stderrFilename:
<servers xmi:type="applicationserver:ApplicationServer" xmi:id="ApplicationServer_1" desiredExecutionState="START" name="Default Server" id="-1" moduleVisibility="APPLICATION"> <processDefinition xmi:type="server:JavaProcessDef" xmi:id="ProcessDef_1" executableName="${JAVA_HOME}/bin/java" commandLineArguments="" workingDirectory="${WAS_ROOT}/bin" executableTargetKind="JAVA_CLASS" executableTarget="com.ibm.ws.bootstrap.WSLauncher"> <executionSettings xmi:id="ProcessExecution_1" umask="022" runAsUser="root"/> <ioRedirect xmi:id="OutputRedirect_1" stdoutFilename="${LOG_ROOT}/default_server_stdout.log" stderrFilename="${LOG_ROOT}/default_server_stderr.log"/>
Instead of two monolithical files, I would like to start new ones every day or at least once a week.
Update: This feature was introduced in WebSphere 4.04. This is from the docs for fixpack 4.
[Thanks, Stefan]
Comments
Volker, I'm pretty sure you can't the only trick I know is that if you precede the logfile path with an exclaimation mark it then overwrtites the log everytime the application server starts.
(in the console my path = !E:\WebSphere\AppServer\logs\appname)
Not perfect I know since you lose the previous log but I've not discovered any other option yet - let me know if you find it :-)
What platform is your server running on?
If it's some UNIX derivate, you might want to try an escape sequence that executes to the current date (you have to put the date command in single quotes to make it execute). Then you should get a file with the date included in the name, hence a new one each day.
Might be though, that the server evaluates the string on start up, hence only creates a file with the startup date.
Also, hopefully this is being parsed out by WebSphere, because I would consider this at least a security weakness, if not a security hole. Other code could be inserted as well and would be executed under the server's username with potentially high privileges...
But still, I'd say it's worth a try.
Chris, I don't want to forget old logfiles since I need them. It's a cool trick to make sure that it does not get too big, but then I forget the file exactly when I need it, that is after a crash.
Ragnar, it is on Windows 2000. And I am not looking for experiments. I try to find somebody who knows more than I do. Which should not be too hard. :-)
