The Siebel Server and the server components it hosts are among the most frequently used processes in a typical Siebel CRM implementation. In the case of error situations or slow performance, we must be able to quickly pin-point the root cause of the problem. One way to do this is to direct the server processes to write more detailed information in their log files.
The Siebel server infrastructure provides a logging model, which is based on event types. We can control the amount of information written to the log file separately for each server component and for each individual event type by choosing a log level for each event type.
The following log levels exist for Siebel servers or individual components:
| Log Level | Description |
| 0 | Fatal—Only severe errors are written to the log file. Recommended for productive operation. |
| 1 | Errors—The default setting; all error messages are written to the log file. Recommended for productive operation. |
| 2 | Warnings—Messages with warning characteristics are included in the log file. Recommended to trace configuration issues. |
| 3 | Informational—Messages with informational content are included in the log file. Recommended for troubleshooting and debugging. |
| 4 | Details—The log file will include detailed information about the process. Recommended for more detailed troubleshooting and debugging. |
| 5 | Diagnostic—All message output from the process will be written to the log file. Only recommended when lower levels do not yield the desired output or when requested by Oracle's technical support team. |
When setting log levels to 2 or higher, we must bear in mind that a higher log level negatively impacts the performance of the Siebel server. In addition, the log files can quickly grow very large in size, clogging the log directories and making it hard to retrieve valuable information.
In the Servers view of the Administration - Server Configuration screen, we can view or modify event log levels for an entire Siebel Server (affecting all components on that server) or individual components.
In this list, we can set the log level for each event type individually. The following table lists some commonly used event types. Oracle recommends a log level of 4 for troubleshooting and 0 or 1 for normal operation.
| Event Type | Description |
| Component Tracing | Various informational messages about parameter values and more. |
| General Events | Information about event points is written to the log file. Example: a background component enters its sleep interval. |
| Task Configuration | All parameters for the current task will be written to the log file header. |
| SQL Profiling | Extended summary of SQL prepare, execute, and fetch statements. |
| SQL Summary | Writes the timings for SQL statement preparation as well as fetch and execute operations to the log file. |
| SQL Error | Traces all erroneous SQL statements. |
| SQL Parse and Execute | Writes all insert, update, and delete SQL statements to the log file. |
| Event to track the flow of a message | For tracking messages exchanged between the Siebel Web Server Extension (SWSE) and the application object manager. |
| Object Manager Session Operation and SetErrorMsg Log | For capturing user session information. |
| Event Context | Traces screen, view, and applet names for the user session. |
| Security Adapter Log | Writes information about the Siebel security adapter to the log file. |
If we wish to set the log level for one or more event types, we must execute the following tasks:
1.Verify that the event type and chosen log level is appropriate for the purpose.
2.Navigate to the Events view for either the server or the component level.
3.Select the Siebel server or the individual component.
4.Select the event type.
5.Set the log level to the desired value.
6.Restart the Siebel server or the individual server component.
Any modification of log levels should be documented and the respective log levels—especially on production systems—should be set back to 0 or 1 when no longer needed in order to avoid performance problems.
The Siebel Server's log directory holds all log files that are produced during the server's operation. If log levels have been increased, we will observe more and larger log files depending on our settings. We can observe that detailed information about the session is written to the file, including SQL statements.
Once a Siebel Server is restarted, the log directory's content is moved to an incrementally numbered subfolder of the LOGARCHIVE directory. We can control the number of archive directories by setting the Log Archive Keep parameter at the server level. This is important to know as the desired log file might reside in a subdirectory of the LOGARCHIVE folder rather than in the log directory, because the Siebel Server has been restarted.
Using the Siebel Server Manager Command Line to Set Event Log Levels
As an alternative to using the graphical user interface (GUI) provided by the views in the Administration - Server Configuration screen, we can issue commands or scripts at the Siebel Server Manager (srvrmgr) command line.
The following example illustrates how to set event log levels for an application object manager:
change evtloglvl genericlog=5 for comp sccobjmgr_enu
The above command sets the log level for the General Events event type to 5 for the English Siebel Call Center object manager.
Using the command line or script files is recommended if we frequently have to change the log level for a larger amount of event types. Scripts can also be used to ensure that log levels are reset back to lower values of 0 or 1 when the troubleshooting process is finished.