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On VCS Windows the HAD / engine log does not provide good troubleshooting information

Updated: 26 Oct 2009 | 3 comments
Tomer Gurantz's picture
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On VCS UNIX the engine_A.log provides highly useful information, e.g. if an IP address already exists on the network, the IP resource in VCS will not bring it up due to duplicate IP addresses. You will see the following message in the engine_A.log:

2009/08/20 16:35:08 VCS NOTICE V-16-1-10301 Initiating Online of Resource ip2 (Owner: unknown, Group: ip2sg) on System train11
2009/08/20 16:35:08 VCS WARNING V-16-10001-4005 (train11) IP:ip2:online:Address 192.168.27.141 already exists: Resource will not go ONLINE

On VCS Windows with this same issue, the only messages are around the fault, but nothing to do with why:

2009/08/20 14:30:27 VCS NOTICE V-16-1-10301 Initiating Online of Resource ip1 (Owner: unknown, Group: ipSG) on System PCTRAIN01

2009/08/20 14:32:28 VCS ERROR V-16-2-13066 (PCTRAIN01) Agent is calling clean for resource(ip1) because the resource is not up even after online completed.

As it turns out, more information can be gleaned from the Event logs (which do mention the IP conflict), however it is curious that the engine log doesn't provide such information.


Comments

Jay Kim's picture
27
Aug
2009
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Not sure about VCS UNIX but

Not sure about VCS UNIX but SFW HA / VCS for Windows actually have a separate log file for each agent. (Agent logs)

So instead of logging all the reasons why it failed to online in the engine_A.txt log, it will log the IP resource failure in more detail in the IP_A.txt log.
This is the same for any resource type (agents). If MountV resource fails / faults, it will log the reason in Mountv_A.txt and not in the engine log.

Please mark my post as solution to help others also if it resolved your issue.

Kimberley's picture
26
Oct
2009
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Follow up from Product

Follow up from Product Management: As Jay mentioned above, the information is offered through the agent logs. Please let us know if there's additional info that you're looking for.

Thanks for participating in the community!

Tomer Gurantz's picture
02
Dec
2009
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Have you looked in the agent logs on Windows?

Hey guys, both the Windows and Unix VCS have agent logs, but the Windows logs are (much as the UNIX logs) usually pretty thin on help. They are often blank. I find for even some of the simpler problems (e.g. file system can't be mounted cause it's busy, reasons for Exchange not coming up, etc) the agent or engine log is pretty poor at providing information. I have heard that you can enable the agent log with debug logging, however that seems like a far step to get just the preliminary high-level information to atleast provide a cause for failures.

I just know from teaching the VCS Windows course as an instructor for 5 years that we will often have problems in the course, sometimes due to student mistakes and typos, sometimes not, and troubleshooting has become a bit of a game of just retrying and looking on our own for solutions (without any help from the logs). 

But hey, that's why this is here right... let's see if others vote on it. :-)

Thanks for looking into this!

Principal Learning Consultant with Symantec Education Course Development