Log files

Log files contain diagnostic information that can be used to review the problem if the program deviates from its intended behavior. To display the log files, open up Server Monitor located in the ribbon of the Administration Panel. Next, choose the server you want to check the log files for and click the  button either for Exchange Rules Service or Sent Items Update (Fig. 1.).

Fig. 1. Opening log files via Server Monitor.

The log files window will show. To check the files mark them and click Open (Fig. 2.).

Fig. 2. Log files explorer.

Instead of entering and saving current log files from the Server Monitor one by one, you can also use the Help context menu to collect the compressed pack of available diagnostic files concerning all instances of the program. To do that, click Help and from the context menu choose Collect all log files (Fig. 3.). Additionally, you can also go to Settings in the Administration Panel's ribbon, hit Log files tab and click Collect log files (Fig. 4.).

Fig. 3. Opening compressed log files pack from the Help context menu.

Fig. 4. Opening compressed log files pack from the Log files tab in program's settings.

Either option you choose, the Collecting log files status window will open along the folder containing compressed diagnostic files (Fig. 5.).

Fig. 5. Folder containing compressed pack of the log files.

During a single day, the program can create plenty of log files in the following name format: YYYY.MM.DD_00001, YYYY.MM.DD_00002, YYYY.MM.DD_00003 etc., where Y stands for the year, M for the month and D for the day in which the file was created.

Log files can be also manually accessed by opening the below path:

%ProgramData%\CodeTwo Exchange Rules\Logs

Of course, in that case you will have to manually check the above location on all servers where CodeTwo Exchange Rules Service is installed. Workstation with Administration Panel installed will contain only local logs generated by the Panel in ClientLogs subfolder, which are useless for diagnosing problems related to services, mail flow and rules execution.

Extending log files

The software generates logs in just one verbosity level - there is no option to make logging less or more detailed. However, the number of log files to keep can be increased to cover longer time.

By default, the number of log files stored by the program is set to 20. The software usually stops logging in a given file if its size reaches 4MB and then it generates a new one. When the set number of logs to keep is reached, the software starts overwriting older logs. This is important to know when diagnosing rules execution or mail flow problems.

The number of logs to keep can be easily adjusted. To do that, go to the Administration Panel's ribbon, click Settings and within the Log files tab enter the desired number (Fig. 6.). Note that the entered number corresponds to the last log files that were created during the program's operation. It means that if any new files are created, the most outdated one will be removed, and a new one will take its place. Also, this option does not work backwards.

When increasing the number of log files to keep for diagnosing purposes CodeTwo strongly recommends to increase that number accordingly to your mail traffic. In small companies with low traffic 20 logs may be enough to cover many hours. But in heavy traffic environments this may be just a few minutes. From our Customer Service experience, bigger companies (sites with a few thousands mailboxes) often have so heavy mail traffic that default 20 Exchange Rules Service logs cover just around 10 minutes. When increased to 99 this time extends to around an hour. Be aware not to overdo this settings so the log folders do not take gigabytes of your servers' drive space.

Fig. 6. Changing the number of log files to be stored.

See also

Knowledge base articles concerning CodeTwo Exchange Rules