Monitoring Log Files

When a Database Is Running

When a Vertica database is running, each node in the cluster writes messages into a file named vertica.log. For example, the Tuple Mover and the transaction manager write INFO messages into vertica.log at specific intervals even when there is no WOS activity.

You configure the location of the vertica.log file. By default, the log file is in catalog-path/database-name/node-name_catalog/vertica.log where

  • catalog-path is the path shown in the NODES system table minus the Catalog directory at the end.
  • database-name is the name of your database.

  • node-name_catalog is the name of the node shown in the NODES system table.

Vertica often changes the format or content of log files in subsequent releases to benefit both customers and customer support.

To monitor one node in a running database in real time:

  1. Log in to the database administrator account on any node in the cluster.

  2. In a terminal window enter:

    $ tail -f catalog-path/database-name/node-name_catalog/vertica.log

To monitor your overall database (rather than an individual node/host), use the Data Collector, which records system activities and performance. See Retaining Monitoring Information for more on Data Collector.

catalog-path

The catalog pathname specified when you created the database. See Creating a Database in the Administrator's Guide.

database-name

The database name (case sensitive)

node-name

The node name, as specified in the database definition. See Viewing a Database in the Administrator's Guide.

When the Database / Node Is Starting up

During system startup, before the Vertica log has been initialized to write messages, each node in the cluster writes messages into a file named dbLog. This log is useful to diagnose situations where the database fails to start before it can write messages into vertica.log. The dblog is located at the following path, using catalog-path and database-name as described above: 

catalog-path/database-name/dbLog

See Also