Gathering logs and traces for IBM support

Use the IBM® WebSphere Collector tool to gather logs and traces that IBM Customer Support can use when troubleshooting your problem.

About this task

The collector tool gathers information about your WebSphere® Application Server installation and packages it in a Java™ archive (JAR) file that you can send to IBM Customer Support to assist in determining and analyzing your problem. Information in the JAR file includes logs, property files, configuration files, operating system and Java data, and the presence and level of each software prerequisite. Be sure you set the log file size and rotation before you collect the information. The default log file rotation leaves the user only one file, which fills up and gets overwritten rather quickly.

Procedure

  1. Follow these steps to configure the log file size and rotation settings.
    1. Log in to the Integrated Solutions Console.
    2. Click Servers > Server Types > WebSphere Application Server.
    3. In the Application Servers list, click the server name.
    4. In the "Troubleshooting" section, click Diagnostic trace service.
    5. In the "General Properties" section, update the following fields:
      Table 1. Log settings
      Option Description
      Log File Rotation Make sure this is managed by file size rather than file age.
      Maximum size Set this value to at least 20MB.
      Maximum Number of Historical Log Files Set this to a value that, when multiplied by the file size, gives you at least 2GB of history in your logs; in this example, you would use 50 files as the maximum.
    6. Click OK, and then click Save.
  2. Use the IBM WebSphere Collector tool to gather logs and traces from all of the environment machines.

    For information on using the WebSphere Collector tool, see the WebSphere information center at the following web address:

    Gathering information with the collector tool (deprecated)

  3. Run the collector on each of the computers in the Sametime® Gateway deployment.

    Notes

    • On each machine, run collector once for each of the WebSphere Application Server profiles.

      The profiles are stored in the \profiles directory; for example on Microsoft® Windows®:

      C:\Program Files\ibm\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles
    • The collector resides in the \bin directory below the profile; for example:
      C:\Program Files\ibm\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\RTCGW_Profile\bin\collector.bat

    The output from each execution of the collector is placed in your current working directory, and includes the name of the profile on which it was run using the format:

    myHostName-MyCellName-MyNodeName-RTCGW_Profile-WASenv.jar
    Note: The generated files will include all log files located in the "logs" directory under the profile directory. To reduce the log size, you might choose to delete all of the existing log files, recreate the problem, and only then gather the logs.
  4. Submit the collector generated log files to IBM support.