IBM Service log

The IBM Service log contains both the applications erver messages that are written to System.out stream and special messages that contain extended service information that can be used to analyze the problem. The IBM Service log is maintained in a binary format, so in order to view the activity.log file you will have to use either the command line based showlog tool that is shipped with WebSphere Application Server or use GUI based Log Analyzer tool that is shipped with WebSphere Application Server Toolkit.

One service log exists for all Java virtual machines (JVMs) on a node, including all application servers and their node agent, if present. A separate activity log is created for a deployment manager in its own logs directory.The activity log, by default, is a file named activity.log in the profile_home/logs directory. You can edit the settings for the activity log by selecting Troubleshooting > Logs and Trace > server_name > IBM Service Logs in the administrative console.



These are the settings that should be configured:

• Enable service log: If selected, enables the service log.


• File Name: Specifies the name of the service log.


• Maximum File Size: Specifies the number of megabytes to which the file can grow. When the file reaches this size, it begins replacing the oldest data with the newest data


• Enable Correlation ID: Specifies whether or not a correlation ID should be generated and included in message events.