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Log Files

The system keeps a note of many of the main events that happen both within the Operating System and within the Vet System. These are recorded in 'log files'.

Log files are great as they allow someone to check events in the past and are maintained automatically by the system. A partial list of these files are included at the end of this document.

All the log files are stored as pure text, this means they are 'human readable'. You will generally read the files from the operating system prompt line, some of the command that you can use are: 

cat filename           List the file on the screen.
cat filename | more    List the file on the screen a page at a time.
cat filename | lp      Print the file on the default printer.

head filename          List the 1st 10 lines on the screen
head -30 filename      List the 1st 30 lines on the screen

tail filename          List the last 10 lines on the screen
tail -30 filename      List the last 30 lines on the screen
These log files get larger and larger, the system will not shrink them. The first time you investigate the log files you may find they are rather large. !!!

You should periodically move the files to one side, this will enable you to manage and monitor them at lot easier.

This only needs done ONCE, create a sub-directory to store the log files in, in the example below we will use the name 'oldlogs'. 

$/Vet     mkdir oldlogs

Now you can move the files into here as required. 

  mv filename oldlogs/filename.monthyear
Add monthyear to the end of the name so you have an historic record e.g mv edit.log oldlogs/edit.0598 otherwise you will overwrite the old file every time.

Automatically maintaining log files:

There is a utility available from support called 'prune', prune will automatically shrink specified files and leave the recent information on file. This is a useful little utility for some of the operating system files. We would not recommend it be used on the Vet System files.

Content of the Log files:

The format of all the log files varies, in general, they will show the date and time, who did it and what was done. Some of the information will by a bit cryptic - we can provide details of the layout if you are unable to make sense of it.

Vet System Log Files: 

added.log    New clients added
diary.log    Cancellations within the diary
edit.log     Changes to clinical records
inte.log     Cross Updating progress
misc.log     General logging, inc. end of year etc.
user.log     When users login (may not be present)
UUCP.log     DO NOT TOUCH THIS FILE
vatbook.log  When the vatbook was run and summary figures.
vetlog       VetTest results - do not edit this file.

Some O.S. Logfiles:

Here is a sample prune file, to see what the files contain either cat them as above or type man F filename. 

/usr/adm/messages       	250
/usr/adm/syslog         	 50
/usr/spool/lp/logs/lpsched        2
/usr/spool/lp/logs/requests       5
/usr/spool/smail/log/logfile    100
/usr/utilities/XLOG              50
/usr/adm/pppd.log                50