Using the WebSphere Commerce Search administration logger

You can use the WebSphere Commerce Search administration logger to check logging information throughout the WebSphere Commerce Search lifecycle.

Before you begin

Ensure that you complete a WebSphere Commerce Search task, such as deploying, setting up, preprocessing, or building the search index. Then, you can use the WebSphere Commerce Search administration logger to check logging information about the task you completed.

Procedure

  1. Enable the WebSphere Commerce Search administration logger:
    1. Open the WebSphere Application Server Administrator's Console. To do so within Rational Application Developer, right-click the WebSphere Commerce Test Server and select Administration > Run administrative console.
    2. Expand Troubleshooting > Logs and Trace. The Logging and Tracing page displays in the workspace on the right.
    3. Click the server for which you want to enable the tracing (such as 'solrServer'). The window refreshes to display the logging and tracing options for the server.
    4. Click Diagnostic Trace. The Diagnostic Trace Service window displays in the workspace.
    5. Click the Configuration or Runtime tab.
      Changes made to Configuration are stored on the file system and applied when the server starts. You must restart the server to pick up any changes. This restart is needed for finding issues that originate or occur when the server is initiated. Modifications to Runtime are applied immediately and are lost after the server is restarted.
    6. Select Change Log Detail Levels to specify which component or components you would like tracing enabled for.

      The WebSphere Commerce Search administration logger is denoted by com.ibm.commerce.foundation.logging.AdminLogger.

      Note: By default, the logging level is set to *=severe. This logging level is safe to use on production. You can set finer logging levels on your non-production environments.
    7. Save the changed configuration.
    8. Start the server.
  2. Check the following log file locations throughout the WebSphere Commerce Search lifecycle.

    The WebSphere Commerce Search administration logger creates log files that are called admin.log in same location as the search server SystemOut.log files when you run the search utilities.

    The content of the log file differs depending on which search server it resides on, and what role the search server serves within the indexing lifecycle. That is, the same search server can be used as the following roles:
    • Master indexing server (Repeater)
    • Subordinate server
    • Indexing server for the staging environment
    • Indexing server for the authoring environment

    The log files are automatically archived. A new log file is created either at midnight, or when the existing log file exceeds 1 MB, whichever occurs first. The archived log files contain the following naming convention: admin_timestamp.log.

    For reference, the following table shows the log file locations when you run the search utilities:

    WebSphere Commerce Search administration logger
    Lifecycle task Search utility Log file location
    Deploying the WebSphere Commerce Search server config_ant WC_installdir/instances/instance_name/logs
    Setting up the WebSphere Commerce Search index setupSearchIndex WC_installdir/components/foundation/subcomponents/search/log
    Preprocessing the WebSphere Commerce Search index data di-preprocess WC_installdir/logs
    Building the WebSphere Commerce Search index di-buildindex WC_installdir/logs
    Creating shards for indexing di-parallel-process WC_installdir/logs
    Calculating contract prices in WebSphere Commerce Search di-calculateprice WC_installdir/logs
    Crawling WebSphere Commerce site content crawler WC_installdir/logs
    Automating search replication configuration (with or without the repeater) configSearchReplication WC_installdir/components/foundation/subcomponents/search/log
    Propagating the search index with the repeater indexprop WC_installdir/logs