Course14:IT Connect - 06.1 Alarms, Events and Logging

Using the Events and Alarms App

Alarms, Events and Logging

innovaphone devices will generate three types of messages related to runtime issues:

• Alarms describe an error situation that is still present
  If a device detects an error, it will raise an alarm. When the error condition is gone, the alarm will be cleared. So in an ideal world, there should be no Alarms at all at any time
• Events describe notable events detected during runtime
  They do not necessarily indicate a real problem but they might serve as indicators
• Log messages can be generated for all kinds of activities (such as for example calls made in the PBX). In contrast to alarms and events, log messages for specific activities can be turned on and off on demand

In case of issues, the usual work flow for an administrator is to consult the current alarms and if there are some that need to be fixed, consult the events to see if something suspicious happened before the alarm was raised.

When the issue can be reproduced, it often makes sense to first have a look at the log messages to see what exactly is going on.

All such messages from all devices known to Devices are sent to a central site so they can be checked at a single place (we have discussed how this is configured in the Device Configuration/Alarm server chapter of the Managing Devices: Alarm server book before). To do this, there are three Apps available, not that surprisingly called Logging, Alarms and Events.

Logging

The Logging App simply shows incoming log messages in real time.

We can try that out and see what happens, when a phone is rebootet:

• open the Logging App
• power cycle your IP232 (simplest to unplug the Ethernet cable for a moment)
• when the phone reboots,  log messages begin to appear

The newest message is always on top. In our re-boot example, we see

2024/01/30 13:18:52 IP232-30-0d-ad EP 0 REGISTRATION-UP(172.31.2.2:1300),GK-ID=dvl-ckl.net,H323=ckl,E164=10

At 2024/01/30 13:18:52 there was a log message sent by IP232-30-0d-ad (which is the serial number of the IP232) which says EP 0 REGISTRATION-UP(172.31.2.2:1300),GK-ID=dvl-ckl.net,H323=ckl,E164=10. The phone has successfully registered to the PBX (at 172.31.2.2) using the configured credentials.

Then

2024/01/30 13:18:50 IP232-30-0d-ad NTP 0 Time Initialized to 30.01.2024-12:18:50 UTC

At 2024/01/30 13:18:50 a log messages from the same IP232 saying NTP 0 Time Initialized to 30.01.2024-12:18:50 UTC. The phone has received the current time from its time server

A little more below, we see the incoming registration request from the IP323 coming in to the IP411-40-00-b3 (which is our PBX) and how it is accepted:

2024/01/30 13:18:52 IP411-40-00-b3 GK 0 REGISTER-OK(172.31.2.6:2049),H323=ckl,E164=10
2024/01/30 13:18:52 IP411-40-00-b3 GK 0 REGISTER-IN(172.31.2.6:2049),GK-ID=dvl-ckl.net,H323=009033300dad,Certificate=IP232s-30-0d-ad

We can see that there was an incoming register from the IP232 at IP 172.31.2.6 with 009033300dad as name and authenticated by a certificate with subject IP232s-30-0d-ad.

The Install has turned on some standard log flags. They can be changed and we'll discuss how this can be done later.

Events

Events are generated only when a device detects a suspicious situation. As opposed to log messages, you do not need to enable events (you only need to configure the URL your devices shall send them to). Also in contrast to log messages, Events are kept persistent. Even in a stable installation, this can happen quite often. As a result, the list displayed in Events is usually quite long.

For example, directly after starting your training setup, the Events App may show something like the following:

 Events after Startup

To manage this large amount of information you can search for events that contain a certain string. Just type it into the search field on the upper right. Or you can define filters and apply them to the list of events.

Clicking on the name of the device (in the Source column) opens the Admin UI tab for this device in the Devices App.

Clicking on the description opens the full details of the event.

In the  sample event we can see that the IP111 was not able to send an HTTP post request to the events service (https://apps-dvl-ckl.training.innovaphone.com:443/dvl-ckl.net/events/innovaphone-logging). You might ask yourself how the Events App can know that a device was unable to post to itself? The answer is that the devices queue all messages to the Events app and hence retry if they can not be sent. Eventually the post succeeds and therefore, the event is seen in the App.

Queuing is actually done for all log, event and alarm messages as well for call detail records (CDRs, which are usually sent to the Reports App).

Cleanup

Events are deleted after some time. The Install has configured a timeout of 30 days but you can change this using the  burger menu on the upper right (Delete events after n days).

As mentioned before, Logging and Alarms are services provided by the Events App to. This is why you can also set the cleanup strategy for log messages here (Delete logs after n days and Keep the latest n logs). Log messages are removed if they are either older than n days or there are more than n messages stored. By default, log messages are not stored in the database, that is, they are stored in memory in the App service. However, you can change this using the Save logs on database switch.

Alarms are cleared automatically as soon as the alarm condition disappears. So there is no cleanup strategy for alarms and hence no configuration.

Alarms

The Alarms App is quite similar to the Events app. Like with events, there is no need to enable specific type of alarms. However, in contrast to events, alarms are kept until they are gone (that is, when the issue is rectified). So there is no need to configure a time frame to keep them.

Note that both raising and clearing of an alarm create an event. Therefore, you will see an event of type Alarm and another event of type Alarm clear for each  alarm that has been raised and cleared later in the Events Ap.

Exporting

You can export alarms, events and log messages in to text files easily by clicking on the  events-export on the upper right edge of the Alarms, Events and Logging App.

These files can be valuable input when you need to contact innovaphone support or presales. So you should include all 3 with any support ticket you open!

We will come back to this topic later in more detail.