CA SiteMinder® Federation Standalone Guide › Logs to Monitor Federation Activities

Logs to Monitor Federation Activities

This section contains the following topics:

Federation Logging Overview

Federation Web Services (FWS) Logging

Server Trace Logging

server.log File Setup

Federation Data Object Trace Logging

Audit Logging

Transaction IDs to Aid Federation Troubleshooting

Federation Logging Overview

Troubleshoot federation operation by enabling logging. Logs provide important diagnostic information for you and for CA Support.

Several logs provide information about federated activities. By default, the system enables the following logs:

• Federation Web Services (FWS) application logs, which include:

  affwebservices.log—This log file contains messages about the Federation Web Services (FWS) application. The default path for this file is federation_install_dir\logs\fws.

  FWSTrace.log—This trace log contains information about FWS runtime activities.

• Server logs for the policy server that is used by the federation product, which include:

  smtracedefault.log—This trace log follows server runtime activities. The default location for this trace log is in the directory federation_install_dir\logs\server.

  Note: If you enable tracing, large log files can result.

  smps.log—This log file contains informational and trace messages about the server. This log file is in the directory federation_install_dir\logs\server.

• Administrative UI operational log

  server.log—This log file contains messages about the Administrative UI and the embedded SPS server. This log file is in the directory federation_install_dir\logs\ui.

You can also enable the federation data store objects trace log, XPSConfig_date_time_stamp.log. This trace log monitors trace activity for the federation objects in the data store.

Checkpoint Log Messages

In the FWSTrace.log and the smtracedefault.log, there are checkpoint log messages that indicate what is happening during a transaction. For example:

[07/30/2013][11:34:44][4260][5824][1181adbb-993f775c-33ba08f3-76b52f3b-3d2280cd-4ae][SSO.java][processRequest][Reading SAML 2.0 SP Configuration [CHECKPOINT = SSOSAML2_SPCONFREAD_REQ]

You can search on these checkpoint messages to follow some of the processes occurring during a transaction.

In addition to the checkpoint messages, there are transaction IDs, which you can use to follow a transaction. If a transaction fails, the checkpoint messages and transaction IDs can help you determine the specific problem.