Troubleshooting

A major part of troubleshooting issues is logging. By default, SmarterMail HA hubs log a number of processes and protocols within the system. Having these logs means that, when issues DO occur, cluster administrators can quickly and easily find out the what's going on and get the problems resolved. If nothing else, having access to logs makes working with SmarterTools much easier as it gives our support agents access to information that can then be used to further find and fix issues, or work with our developers to figure out what's going on so a fix can be implemented.

By default, SmarterMail sets log detail levels to Information. Use this section to adjust the log detail levels for the proxy layer logging for the protocols used with SmarterMail HA as well as the process logs. Be aware that more detailed logs require more disk space. If you choose a detailed log, you may want to enable the "Delete Log Files After" setting on the Log Files card. In addition, some logging levels should should only be used at the request of SmarterTools.

Cluster administrators have access to the following Troubleshooting tabs:

• Options - Configure the log and indexing settings for the hubs.
• View Logs - Review the hub logs to look for errors or monitor recent activity.

Options

Use this section to manage how the log files are handled and the level of logging needed for protocols and processes.

Log Files

• Compress Log Files After - The number of days after which log files are automatically compressed. This preserves existing log files but also saves server space.
• Delete Log Files After - The number of days after which log files are automatically deleted. To enable this automatic deletion of log files.

Logging levels for both Protocols and Processes include:

• Trace - This level contains super "noisy" data that is only helpful in very specific cases, sort of like a general use Debug Log. Should only be set when instructed by SmarterTools.
• Debug - This level provides useful information during situations like development and troubleshooting general configuration or setup issues. This will include lots of system events that may be obvious, but can be helpful to specifically see what is going on.
• Information - This level is intended to be a "Normal" log level and will show system events and information that is useful in everyday operations.
• Warning - This level is intended to bring attention to potentially concerning situations that could also be normal or expected. An example from SmarterMail HA would be something like a Cluster Status change that is recorded as a warning: it may be intentional but also may be an indication of failure.
• Warning - This is usually considered the lowest level that you would typically want logs set at unless you were specifically trying to quiet them down.
• Error - This level records failures that should be recoverable from within the application. These are intended to be highlighted and should realistically require intervention or analysis
• Critical - This level is also referred to as "Fatal" in some logging paradigms. It is an unrecoverable error that terminates the application. This is considered the highest level of logging and running into these situations will require manually restarting the application.
• None - This log level is used to "turn off" logs of certain types. It's essentially a no-op and just ignores any logs that meet the requirements to be logged.

Protocol Logging Levels

SmarterMail HA hubs proxy most of their traffic, especially when something such as HAProxy is used in front of the cluster. As this just logs proxy traffic, to review actual protocol traffic a cluster admininstrator should manage a specific node and review logs directly. Regardless, these logs will show where proxy requests go (e.g., which node), error conditions, etc. The following proxy log files can be adjusted.

• IMAP Proxy - Proxied IMAP traffic.
• LDAP Proxy - Proxied LDAP traffic.
• POP Proxy - Proxied POP3 traffic..
• SMTP Proxy - Proxied SMTP traffic.
• XMPP Proxy - Proxied XMPP (chat) traffic.

Process Logging Levels

Process Logging can help administrators in a number of ways. For example:

• Delivery Logs can help find out what happened to a particular message: if it was delivered, if it was delivered but rejected due to spam rules, whether it was moved based on a content filter, etc.
• SMTP Logs can show why a message was rejected by the recipient's mail server.
• Administrative Logs can show when a setting was changed, and which system administrator made the change.

The following log file types can be adjusted:

• Administrative - Changes and/or modifications made by cluster administrator accounts.
• Cluster Service - The log for the entire SmarterMail HA cluster.
• General - A general, overall logging available for the cluster.
• HTTP Proxy - Logs HTTP proxy traffic.
• Hub Logger - The log for hub actions. This includes things such as DoS detection, blacklist checks, etc.

View Logs

Use this section to quickly view various log files. Viewing log files, especially when it's possible to narrow down the type of process or protocol that requires attention, allows cluster administrators to look for any specific errors that could cause reliability issues on the cluster or narrow down reasons why a specific behavior is being seen.

When viewing the SmarterMail HA logs, the following search strings will be available:

• Start and End - The start and end dates for the log files you want to view.
• Hub - This dropdown lists all of the hubs currently configured for the cluster. Or, logs for all hubs combined can be viewed.
• Type - The type of log file that you would like to view.
• Search - Type the words or phrases should be contained in the log files that SmarterMail returns.

To search a specific log, complete the date range, select the hub, select the log type, and then enter a search string. Any matching log files will be displayed.

Downloading Logs and/or Search Results

It's possible to download either entire logs or only the search results you receive.

To download the entire log file in a .zip format simply click the Download button. This allows you to get quick access to a domain's entire log file so that it can be reviewed more thoroughly on a local machine. If you only need the search results, click the dropdown next to the Download button and select Download Results Only. This downloads only the results as a text file. You can also copy the results to your clipboard, then past those results into your favorite text editor. (We recommend Notepad ++ as it handles large files better than Notepad.)