Log files

Log files contain diagnostic information that can be used to review any problems if the program fails to work correctly.

To display the log files, open the Server Monitor located on the toolbar of the Administration Panel. Choose the server whose log files you want to check and click the Download () button either for the Exchange Rules Pro Service or Sent Items Update (Fig. 1.).

Fig. 1. Opening log files via the Server Monitor.

The log files window will open. To check any file, mark it and click Open (Fig. 2.).

Fig. 2. Log file explorer.

Instead of entering and saving your current log files from the Server Monitor one by one, you can also use the Help context menu to collect a compressed pack of all 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.). Alternatively, you can also go to Settings on the Administration Panel's toolbar, enter the Log files tab and click Collect log files (Fig. 4.).

Fig. 3. Collecting compressed log files from the Help context menu.

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

Whatever option you choose, the Collect log files window will open along with a folder containing compressed diagnostic files (Fig. 5.).

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

During a single day the program can create plenty of log files. They have the following naming pattern: 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 also be manually accessed by opening the path below:

%ProgramData%\CodeTwo Exchange Rules\Logs

Please note that in the case above you will have to manually access the highlighted location on all servers where the CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro Service is installed. A workstation where only the Administration Panel is installed will contain only local logs generated by this panel in the ClientLogs subfolder. These local files are useless when diagnosing problems related to the services, mail flow or execution of rules.

Extending log files

The software generates logs using 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 periods.

By default, the number of log files stored by the program is set to 20. The software usually stops logging in a given file once its size reaches 4 MB and then generates a new log file. When a set number of logs to keep is reached, the software starts overwriting the 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 toolbar, click Settings and within the Log files tab enter a 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 ones will be removed, and new files will take their place. Also, this option does not work backwards.

When increasing the number of log files to keep for diagnosing purposes, CodeTwo strongly recommends to base the new value on your mail traffic. In small companies with low traffic 20 logs may be enough to cover many hours of operation. But in heavy traffic environments this number of files may be logged in just a few minutes. From our Customer Service experience, bigger companies (with a few thousands mailboxes) often have such a heavy mail traffic that the default 20 service logs cover only about 10 minutes. When the number is increased to 99, this time extends to around an hour. Be aware not to overdo this setting so the log folders do not take gigabytes of your servers' disk space.

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

See next

Licensing - this article and its subsections describe the licensing (new installation, upgrades, extending a license) and the trial version of the program. The section also provides information on how to activate the program and includes the Licensing Agreement.

See also

Knowledge base articles concerning CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro