The SAS Logging Facility

Logging Facility Terminology

Here are the common terms that this document uses:

appender

a named entity that represents a specific output destination for messages. Destinations include fixed files, rolling files, operating system facilities, and client applications. You can configure appenders by specifying thresholds, filters, log directories and filenames, pattern layouts, and other parameters that control how messages are written to the destination.

filter

a set of character strings or thresholds, or a combination of strings and thresholds that you specify. Log events are compared to the filter to determine whether they should be processed.

level

the diagnostic level that is associated with a log event. The levels, from lowest to highest, are TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, and FATAL.

log event

an occurrence that is reported by a program for possible inclusion in a log.

logger

a named entity that identifies a message category. Loggers are named using a hierarchical system that enables you to configure logging at a broad or a fine-grained level.

The logging facility includes a set of high-level loggers for SAS servers, including Audit, Admin, App, IOM, and Perf. Some loggers are subdivided into lower-level (child) loggers. For example, the Audit logger has descendant loggers called Audit.Meta and Audit.Authentication, and Audit.Meta has descendant loggers called Audit.Meta.Security and Audit.Meta.Mgmt. The Root logger is the highest-level logger and does not represent a specific message category.

Loggers inherit settings from their higher-level (ancestor) loggers.

logging configuration

an XML file or a set of SAS program statements that determines how log events are processed. You use the logging configuration to assign thresholds to loggers, to configure appenders, and to specify which categories and levels of log events are to be written to each appender.

If you perform a planned deployment, then the SAS Deployment Wizard provides default logging configuration files for your SAS servers.

pattern layout

a template that you create to format messages. The pattern layout identifies the types of data, the order of the data, and the format of the data that is generated in a log event and is delivered as output.

threshold

the lowest event level that is processed. Log events whose levels are below the threshold are ignored.

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