Available log file switching techniques

Available techniques

You can choose one of the following log switching techniques:

Log pushing--Pushes the log to a specified Web or FTP server.
Log rotation (the default)--Rotates the log at a specified interval.

You can use only one log switching technique at a time, but you can alternate between them. Log pushing, log rotation, and the parameters that control when the logs are pushed or rotated are global settings. That is, the settings apply to all enabled NetCache logs except the Messages log.

The Messages log is not configurable. NetCache always rotates the Messages log. A new Messages log is started every Sunday at midnight. At this time, the recently replaced messages file is copied to messages.0, the messages.0 file is copied to messages.1, and so on. The oldest Messages log is deleted.

Parameters for controlling log handling

You can specify that logs are to be rotated or pushed when they reach a maximum file size or according to a schedule that you set. However, NetCache always rotates or pushes a log when it reaches the maximum size if the maximum size is reached before the scheduled rotation or push time. You can set a minimum log file size of 1 MB or a maximum size of 1999 MB. The default value is 10 MB.

Typically organizations set the maximum file size to 100 MB or several hundred MB per day. For a normally busy C6100, for example, log files can reach 10 GB or more per day. Setting a small maximum file size value in such a case would result in too many log files to realistically be able to manage.

If you are pushing logs to a Web server or an FTP server according to a schedule, schedule log pushing for off-peak hours. In addition, avoid setting a large log file size. The reason is that if a network failure occurs during a log push, NetCache restarts the log push from the beginning of the file. If the log files are smaller, a greater chance exists that a complete log file might have been pushed before the network failure occurred.