Logging Error Messages

The Volume Manager provides the option of logging console output to a file. This logging is useful in that any messages output just before a system crash will be available in the log file (presuming that the crash does not result in file system corruption). vxconfigd controls whether such logging is turned on or off. If enabled, the default log file is /var/vxvm/vxconfigd.log.

vxconfigd also supports the use of syslog() to log all of its regular console messages. When this is enabled, all console output is directed through the syslog() interface.

syslog() and log file logging can be used together to provide reliable logging (into a private log file), along with distributed logging through syslogd.

Both syslog() and log file logging are disabled by default.

To enable logging of console output to a file, you can either invoke vxconfigd as follows or edit Volume Manager startup scripts (described later):

vxconfigd -x log

To enable syslog() logging of console output, you can either invoke vxconfigd as follows or edit Volume Manager startup scripts (described later):

vxconfigd -x syslog

To enable log file and/or syslog() logging, you can also edit the following portion of the /etc/init.d/vxvm-sysboot startup script:

# comment-out or uncomment any of the following lines to enable or
# disable the corresponding feature in vxconfigd.
 
#opts="$opts -x syslog"                 # use syslog for console messages
#opts="$opts -x log"                    # messages to /var/vxvm/vxconfigd.log
#opts="$opts -x logfile=/foo/bar"       # specify an alternate log file
#opts="$opts -x timestamp"              # timestamp console messages
 
# to turn on debugging console output, uncomment the following line.
# The debug level can be set higher for more output.  The highest
# debug level is 9.
#debug=1                                # enable debugging console output

Uncomment the line(s) corresponding to the feature(s) that you want enabled at startup. For example, to set up vxconfigd to automatically use file logging, uncomment the opts="$opts -x log" string.

For more information on logging options available through vxconfigd, refer to the vxconfigd(1M) manual page.