Geo SCADA Expert consists of multiple applications. Each of these applications can produce log files that contain a record of the application's activity. The log files are useful when investigating unexpected situations on your system.
Each application in Geo SCADA Expert has its own log file settings, and you can choose to enable or disable logging for each application as required. Typically, you would leave some logging enabled so that if an unexpected situation occurs, there is some information about what happened. However, you need to be selective when enabling logging as some logging options produce a large amount of output and should only be enabled in specific circumstances.
Some of the applications that form Geo SCADA Expert also contain a Telnet server that allows them to be monitored in real time. This provides 'live' monitoring as opposed to the 'snapshot' of data that is provided in log files.
In this section, we explain:
- Server Logging—provides logging for a Geo SCADA Expert server.
- Driver Logging—provides logging for an individual driver.
- Communications Logging—provides logging of data transmitted and received via an individual channel.
- Port Server Logging—provides logging for the port server.
- Alarm and Event Printer Logging—provides logging for the alarm and event printer.
- License Server Logging—provides logging for client licenses (information about requests, expires and so on)
- Performance Monitoring—provides tools to monitor your computer's performance, both in real time and by collecting log data for later analysis.
- Telnet Monitoring
- Server Snapshot Log Files.
The log files and Telnet server for some applications can only be configured using a registry editor (see Using a Registry Editor to Change Server Log File Settings).
The location of the log files on a particular server can be changed using the Geo SCADA Expert Server Configuration Tool (see Move all New Log Files to a Different Location).
For information on the Server Startup log file which provides information about the server start-up process, see Access the DBStartup Log File.
All current logging using the 'server identity' to log a particular event will use the Server Label instead. This provides consistency within the system when referencing a server instance.
Geo SCADA Expert accesses the relevant log file whenever a new line is to be logged. If a server log file fails to open, the reason for the issue appears in the Log Files category of the Server Status Tool (see Log Files). If the main Geo SCADA Expert server log file fails to open, a warning message 'LOGGING SUSPENDED...' is also displayed in the Information category of the Server Status Tool (see Information). For all log file types, an entry is logged in the Event Viewer in Windows®. If the log file fails to open, Geo SCADA Expert will retry to open the log file when a new line is to be logged. Providing that the retry is successful, logging will then resume. With such a situation, the log file will include a 'LOGGING RESUMED...' entry. This indicates that some log file data might be missing in between the previously logged entry and this statement.
Many log files contain information that is only of use to expert users such as Schneider Electric engineers. Normally, you will only be required to enable a particular type of logging and provide Schneider Electric with information from the log file (or the log file itself). If you are familiar with the particular protocol then you should understand the contents of the comms log files. However, the contents of the other files are designed to be analyzed by Schneider Electric engineers only.