Policy Server Guides › Policy Server Administration Guide › Configuring the Policy Server Profiler › Manually Roll Over the Profiler Trace Log File

Manually Roll Over the Profiler Trace Log File

The Policy Server allows you to manually rollover the Policy Server Profiler trace log file using the smpolicysrv command.

Important! Before running a CA SiteMinder® utility or executable on Windows Server 2008, open the command-line window with administrator permissions. Open the command-line window this way, even if your account has administrator privileges.

To start trace logging to a file, run the following command:

smpolicysrv -starttrace

This command starts logging to a trace file and does not affect trace logging to the console. It issues an error if the Policy Server is not running.

If the Policy Server is already logging trace data, running the –starttrace command causes the Policy server to rename the current trace file with a time stamp appended to the name in the form: file_name.YYYYMMDD_HHmmss.extension and create a new trace file with the original name. For example, if the trace file name in Policy Server Management Console’s Profiler tab is C:\temp\smtrace.log, the Policy Server generates a new file and saves the old one as c:\temp\smtrace.20051007_121807.log. The time stamp indicates that the Policy Server created the file on October 7, 2005 at 12:18 pm.

If you have not enabled the tracing of a file feature using the Policy Server Management Console’s Profiler tab, running this command does not do anything.

To stop trace logging to a file, run the following command:

smpolicysrv -stoptrace

This command stops logging to a file and does not affect trace logging to the console. It issues an error if the Policy Server is not running.

Note: On Windows systems, do not run the smpolicysrv command from a remote desktop or Terminal Services window. The smpolicysrv command depends on inter-process communications that do not work if you run the smpolicysrv process from a remote desktop or Terminal Services window.

Dynamic Trace File Rollover at Specified Intervals

You can also write a script to cause a trace file to be rolled over at a specified time interval. For example, to create a new trace file every hour, write a script similar to the following:

smpolicysrv -starttrace
repeat forever
wait 1 hour
smpolicysrv -starttrace
end repeat

This is similar to the time-based rollover option on the Policy Server Management Console’s Logs tab.