Cisco Prime Access Registrar 6.0.1 User Guide

Syslog Messages
- Example 1
- Example 2
Configuring Message Logging (Solaris)
Configuring Message Logging (Linux)
Changing Log Directory
Configuring Syslog Daemon (syslogd)
Managing the Syslog File
- Using a cron Program to Manage the Syslog Files
Server Up/Down Status Change Logging
- Header Formats
- Example Log Messages

Logging Syslog Messages

Logging messages via syslog provides centralized error reporting for Cisco Prime Access Registrar (Prime Access Registrar). Local logging and syslog logging can be turned on or off at any time by modifying the control flags in the $INSTALLPATH/conf/car.conf file.

Logging syslog messages requires a UNIX host running a syslog daemon as a receiver for Prime Access Registrar messages. Prime Access Registrar and the syslog daemon can be running on the same host or different hosts.

This chapter contains the following sections:

•Syslog Messages

•Configuring Message Logging (Solaris)

•Configuring Message Logging (Linux)

•Changing Log Directory

•Configuring Syslog Daemon (syslogd)

•Managing the Syslog File

•Server Up/Down Status Change Logging

Syslog Messages

Messages sent to the following logs will be forwarded to syslog server in a slightly different format. The logs are:

•aregcmd_log

•config_mcd_[1..n]_log

•name_radius_[1..n]_log

•agent_server_[1..n]_log

Messages less than 1024 bytes in length display in the following format:

MMM DD hh:mm:ss hostname %Prime AR-[severity]-[mnemonic]: [#n], [System|Server]: 
message_description

Where:

MMM DD is the month and date that the message is received by the syslog server.

hh:mm:ss is the arrival time of the message.

hostname is the name of the syslog server.

severity is one of the following levels:

0 - emergency

1 - alert

2 - critical

3 - error

4 - warning

5 - notification

6 - informational

7 - debugging

mnemonic can be aregcmd, name_radius, agent_server and config_mcd for the identification of Prime Access Registrar-relative subsystems.

#n is the id for the components: name_radius, agent_server, and config_mcd

message_description provides detailed information of the message.

Messages greater than 1024 bytes in length display in multiple lines. At the end of each 1024 bytes line, three dots indicate a continuation of the message as follows:

MMM DD hh:mm:ss hostname %Prime AR-[severity]-[mnemonic]: [#n], [System|Server]: 
message_description: Configuration: text and more message text and more message text 
and more message text and more message text and more message text and more message 
text and more message text and more message text and more message text and more 
message text and more message text and more message text and more message text and 
more message text and more message text and more message text and more message text 
and more message text and more message text and more message text and more message 
text and more message text and more message text and more message text ...

The continuation of a message begins with three dots as follows:

MMM DD hh:mm:ss hostname %Prime AR-[severity]-[mnemonic]: [#n], [System|Server]: 
message_description: Configuration: ... text and more message text and more message 
text and more message text and more message text and more message text and more 
message text and more message text and more message text and more message text and 
more message text and more message text and more message text

Example 1

May 19 14:28:44 dwlau-ultra2.cisco.com

%Prime AR-3-name_radius: #1, System: Remote LDAP Server.Unable to bind.

Example 2

May 19 14:28:45 dwlau-ultra2.cisco.com

%Prime AR-6-name_radius: #1, Server: Stopping server

Configuring Message Logging (Solaris)

Message logging is on by default, and all logs are stored in the $INSTALL/logs directory. To turn logging off, or to change the location where logs are stored, you must modify the $INSTALLPATH/conf/car.conf file.

In $INSTALLPATH/conf/car.conf file, the following lines control logging.

LOCAL_LOGGING [ON|OFF]

LOGDIR full_path

DATADIR full_path

SYSLOG_LOGGING [ON|OFF]

SERVER_IP_ADDRESS [ip_address]

FACILITY_LOCAL_NUMBER [0..7]

Where:

LOCAL_LOGGING enables (ON) or disables (OFF) the local logging function. (Local logging is on by default.)

LOGDIR specifies a full pathname to a different local log directory.

DATADIR specifies a full pathname to a different data directory.

SYSLOG_LOGGING enables (ON) or disables (OFF) the syslog logging function. (syslog logging is on by default.)

SERVER_IP_ADDRESS specifies the IP address of the host to which Prime Access Registrar will send syslog messages.

FACILITY_LOCAL_NUMBER specifies the facility being used by the syslogd.

The following is an example:

LOCAL_LOGGING OFF

SYSLOG_LOGGING ON

SERVER_IP_ADDRESS 209.165.200.224

FACILITY_LOCAL_NUMBER 7

Note You must first stop the Prime Access Registrar server prior to changing the car.conf file, then restart the server. If you change the directory location where logs or database data are stored, you should also copy all log files or data files to that same directory before restarting the Prime Access Registrar server.

Configuring Message Logging (Linux)

To enable syslog logging in Linux, you must modify the syslog file in the /etc/sysconfig directory. The following is the default syslog file.

# Options to syslogd

# -m 0 disables 'MARK' messages.

# -r enables logging from remote machines

# -x disables DNS lookups on messages recieved with -r

# See syslogd(8) for more details

SYSLOGD_OPTIONS="-m 0"

# Options to klogd

# -2 prints all kernel oops messages twice; once for klogd to decode, and

#    once for processing with 'ksymoops'

# -x disables all klogd processing of oops messages entirely

# See klogd(8) for more details

KLOGD_OPTIONS="-x"

To enable logging of syslog messages, you must enable the syslog daemon to listen on port 514 by adding the -r flag to the SYSLOGD_OPTIONS line as follows:

SYSLOGD_OPTIONS="-m 0 -r"

Changing Log Directory

You can change the directory where local log messages are stored by adding the following line in the $INSTALLPATH/conf/car.conf file.

LOGDIR full_path

Where full_path is a full path to the directory where you want to store the log messages. For example, to store all system logs in /var/log/AICar1, add the following line in the $INSTALLPATH/conf/car.conf file:

LOGDIR /var/log/AICar1

You must first stop the Prime Access Registrar server prior to changing the car.conf file. After changing the car.conf file, copy all existing log files to the new directory, then restart the server.

Note Specifying a path for local logging does not affect the storage location of syslog messages.

Configuring Syslog Daemon (syslogd)

You must specify the facility from which syslogd will receive messages and the file into which the messages will be deposited.

In the syslog server's /etc/syslog.conf file, the following line might be needed.

localn.info <tab> <tab> <tab> /var/log/filename.log

Note Use at least one <tab> as a field separator.

Where:

localn—is the facility being used for syslogd; n must be a value from 0-7 and match the FACILITY_LOCAL_NUMBER used in Prime Access Registrar's car.conf file.

/var/log/—is the path to the file that stores syslogd messages.

filename.log—is the file that stores syslogd messages. You can give this file a name of your choice.

Creating a Syslog Log File

To create a syslog log file:

Step 1 Log in as user root.

Step 2 Enter the following command, where filename.log is a name you choose.

touch filename.log

Step 3 Change permissions on the syslog log file by entering the following:

chmod 664 filename.log

Restarting a syslog daemon

To restart the syslog daemon:

/etc/init.d/syslog stop

/etc/init.d/syslog start

Managing the Syslog File

Left unmanaged, the syslog file will grow in size over time and eventually fill all available disk space in its partition. Prime Access Registrar writes log files and session data (to persist user sessions) in the same disk partition where Prime Access Registrar is installed.

In normal operation, log files consume a large amount of disk space. If log files are not managed regularly, Prime Access Registrar might not have sufficient disk space to write session data. To avoid this, you should move the Prime Access Registrar log files directory to a different disk partition than the one where Prime Access Registrar writes session data, as described in Changing Log Directory.

Using a cron Program to Manage the Syslog Files

We recommend that you use the cron program to manage the syslog files.

The following example crontab file performs a weekly archival of the existing syslog file (named ar_syslog.log in this example). This scheme keeps the previous two week's worth of syslog files.

#

# At 02:01am on Sundays:

# Move a weeks worth of 'ar_syslog.log' log messages to 'ar_syslog.log.1'.

# If there was a 'ar_syslog.log.1' move it to 'ar_syslog.log.2'.

# If there was a 'ar_syslog.log.2' then it is lost.

01 02 * * 0 cd /var/log;

if [ -f ar_syslog.log ];

then if [ -f ar_syslog.log.1 ];

then /bin/mv ar_syslog.log.1 ar_syslog.log.2;

fi;

/usr/bin/cp ar_syslog.log ar_syslog.log.1;

>ar_syslog.log;

fi

Note Consider using move (mv) or copy (cp) commands to store the previous week's syslog files in a different disk partition to reserve space for the current syslog file.

Using a cron Program to Manage the Syslog Files

To add this crontab segment to the existing cron facility in /usr/spool/cron/crontabs directory, complete the following steps at the syslog server console:

Step 1 Log in as user root.

Step 2 Enter the following command:

crontab -e

Server Up/Down Status Change Logging

Prime Access Registrar supports RADIUS server up/down detection and logging. The information messages are saved in the $INSTALL/logs/name_radius_1_log file where $INSTALL is the Prime Access Registrar installation directory. Each message consists of a header and a message description.

Header Formats

The format of a header entry is:

mm/dd/yyyy HH:MM:SS name/radius/n Error Server 0

Example Log Messages

Following are the descriptions and types of messages that can be found within the <AR_install_dir>/logs/name_radius_1_log file:

1. Prime Access Registrar detects a Remote Server when it responds for the first time or after it is reentered into Prime Access Registrar's server pool for retry. The format of the message is:

Remote Server <hostname> (<ipaddress>:<port>) is UP!