Monitoring

This section describes the process for monitoring Meta-Directory's log files, statistics, and other systems. Meta-Directory.

Describe how the Management Center is used to monitor logs, statistics, and other computers.

Types of Monitoring

Meta-Directory's Management Center lets you monitor the following services:

  • Status information, which tells you if a service is currently active. If a service is down, an alarm message appears or sounds, and a symbol is superimposed on the appropriate service icon. You can also view status information by right-clicking the service icon and selecting Service Status from the popup menu that appears.
  • Log files, which record activity such as the opening and closing of a connection, time since the last activity occurred, or any failures that occurred. The actual activities recorded depend on the type of service. The Management Center makes it easy to search log files to find specific events.
  • Statistics about the performance of a service, such as memory and file usage.

You can also retrieve additional information about statistics using the Performance Monitor service, which displays the counters and their values maintained by the Windows NT Performance Monitor. Since these counters are relevant to all objects on a computer (not just the Meta-Directory services), it takes more time to retrieve the same information that you can see using the Statistics icon under the appropriate service icon.


Monitoring Log Files

Log files enable you to monitor the Meta-Directory services. A log file consists of a series of entries, each of which records the date and time of a specific event or failure. These events can include the start or end of a connection, activity that has occurred, or any interruptions or failures that occur.

New log file entries are continually appended to the current file. To prevent the file from becoming too large and using an excessive amount of disk space, there is a default maximum file size and a maximum number of backup copies to maintain. The defaults vary depending on the type of log file and can be changed in the Configuration dialog box for each service. (Right-click the appropriate service icon and select Configure; then click the Logs tab.) To change how often the service is polled for log entries, use the Manager Connection menu item that is accessible when you right-click an icon.

To track problems across services, you can easily compare log files from two or more services by using the New Right View option on the View menu. When you select a log file and then click New Right View, a copy of the right pane containing the log file is created. You can then open another log file and make a copy of it. By tiling the windows,


Viewing Log Files

To view log files:

  1. Select the Logs icon under a Meta-Directory service. The current and backup log files are displayed by file name.
  2. Double-click the appropriate file name to view the contents of a log file. The contents of the file are displayed in the right pane.

The following example shows sample entries for a log file maintained for the Directory Connector for Lotus Notes.

19990217 16:08:35 -START DRA_NOTES SERVICE 1

9990217 16:09:06 -MGR Connect from

19990217 16:09:06 00000000 MGR Login

19990217 16:10:43 -MGR Connection from

19990217 16:10:43 000000001 MGR Login

19990217 16:14:08 00000000 MGR Disconnected from

If the entry is too long to display on the screen, you can expand the height of the row to force the line to wrap. To do so, right-click while the cursor is in the right pane and click Increase Row Height in the popup menu that appears.

When viewing log files, you can use the following keyboard shortcuts: PageUp, PageDown, Ctrl-Home, Ctrl-End, and arrows.

You can copy the contents of the log file to the clipboard. If you select an individual word, the word is placed in the clipboard. If you don’t select anything, the visible contents are copied.


Searching Log Files

You use the standard logging toolbar, shown below, to search through log files maintained for each service.

When you select a log file, the toolbar is updated with the log file tools. These tools make it easy to search backward or forward through the log file to find certain events based on the search string you enter. You can search for a string using these methods:

  • Search the complete, raw log file for individual instances of the string
  • Create a new, filtered file that contains only those entries that have the search string

By default, the string is not case-sensitive.

To search through a raw (unfiltered) file:

  1. Type in a search string and click Search Forward (if you are at the beginning of the screen). The cursor moves to the first instance of the string in the screen.
  2. To find the next instance in the screen, click Search Forward again.
  3. When you are finished, stop the search by pressing the Esc key.

To create a filtered file:

  1. Enter a search string.
  2. Click Filter. The screen is updated to show a filtered file of all entries that contain the search string.

    When a filtered file is displayed, the Filter button is highlighted. To redisplay the raw file, click Raw.

When searching a log file, you may want to periodically update the log file so you have the most recent entries. To do so, click Refresh in the toolbar or press F5.


Monitoring Statistics

The Statistics icon displays performance information. For example, you would check Statistics to view Meta-Directory JoinEngine activity, such as the number of MetaView or ConnectorView deletions, additions, or modifications to entries.

To specify how often to poll for statistics information, right-click the icon for the service and select Manager Connection. The Connection Settings dialog box appears, as shown below.

From the General tab page, you can set the time, in seconds, for how often the following actions occur:

  • Update log entries
  • Update statistics
  • Abandon an operation

Monitoring Other Computers

If you want to monitor the performance of specific resources on individual computers, you can turn on the display of the Performance icon. When the Performance icon is displayed, you can view system information such as statistics about file and disk usage, available memory, queue lengths, and current bandwidth usage on a particular network interface. (By default, the Performance icon is not displayed. The procedure below explains how to display this icon.)

The information displayed under the Performance icon is retrieved from the Performance Monitor service on each computer. Performance Monitor is a Windows NT service that maintains a set of counters for measuring the performance of objects located on a system. (In Performance Monitor, an object is a system resource, such as a processor, memory, cache, or process.) Each object is associated with a different set of counters. The Performance icon displays the values contained in the counters of the objects you select.

For more information about the specific statistics maintained by Performance Monitor, see the Windows NT Resource Kit.

To display performance information:

  1. Turn on the display of the Performance icon if it is not currently displayed. To do so, select Configuration from the Options menu and select the Show Performance checkbox. Click OK. This displays the Performance icon under the selected computer.

 

  1. Right-click the Performance icon and click Add Dial or Add Bar from the popup menu that appears. This displays the Properties dialog box, as shown below.

  1. From the Objects drop-down list, select the object you want to reference in a performance bar or dial.
  2. Choose a counter from the list that is relevant to the object selected.
  3. If desired, change the time in seconds for how often the performance of the object will be updated. Type the number in the box provided.

  4. Select the Settings tab. Specify the minimum value and red or yellow alert notice for the Upper and Lower limits of the object.
  5. Click OK. A dial or bar appears in the right pane of the Management Center, as shown below, that displays the performance of the object.

 

Each bar or dial displays performance information about a specific instance of an object you select. The bars and dials are continually updated until you close them.

  1. Repeat for each instance of an object you want to monitor.

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