Monitoring the FAST Search Lotus Notes and database connector

 

Applies to: FAST Search Server 2010

You can view log messages for the FAST Search connectors for Lotus Notes and database content by:

  • Consulting the local log file

  • Viewing the real time log from the console

  • Looking at the Windows Event Viewer

  • Monitoring the connectors through the System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

  • Monitoring indexed items

Consulting the local log file

The FAST Search database connector and the FAST Search Lotus Notes connector both log monitoring information to a local log file. You can inspect this file for log messages of the type “FATAL”, “ERROR” and (possibly) “WARNING”. The log file can be accessed by navigating to the log file location as indicated in the following table.

Connector Log file location

FAST Search database connector

<FASTSearchFolder>\var\jdbcconnector\<collection>\log

<FASTSearchFolder> is the path of the folder where you have installed FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, for example C:\FASTSearch.

FAST Search Lotus Notes content connector

<FASTSearchFolder>\var\lotusnotesconnector\<collection>\log

FAST Search Lotus Notes user directory connector

<FASTSearchFolder>\var\lotusnotesconnector\security\log

Viewing the real time log from the console

If you are running a connector from the console, you can monitor the logs directly from the console the connector is running in.

Looking at the Windows Event Viewer

In addition to logging to a local file and the console, the same log messages are sent to the Windows Event Log.

To open the Windows Event Viewer:

  1. Start Server Manager.

  2. Navigate to the node Server Manager.

  3. Go to Diagnostics, select Event Viewer, select Applications and Services Logs and open FAST Search.

The FAST Search database connector log entries are identified with Source=”FAST Search JDBC Connector” and the FAST Search Lotus Notes connector log entries with Source=”FAST Search Lotus Notes Connector”.

Monitoring the connectors through the System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

If you are using System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) and have installed the FAST Search management pack, the log entries from the FAST Search database and FAST Search Lotus Notes connectors are also available there. The health of the connectors is registered in SCOM and it is included in the overall health of the FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint system.

Note that the FAST Search database connector and the FAST Search Lotus Notes connectors tend to log a bit too aggressively for the liking of the event log. You may see a “Log Flooding detected” event generated by the event log for one or both connectors. This will result in the health of the connector turning from “Healthy” to “Warning”. This can safely be ignored. Because of this, you should ignore a “Warning” health for these connectors and only take action if the health status becomes “Critical”.

A common way to monitor the connectors in a production setting is to use SCOM to monitor the health of the connectors. If the health turns to Critical, consult the local log file to investigate the cause.

Monitoring indexed items

Items that are indexed by the FAST Search database and FAST Search Lotus Notes connector are logged in the status tracker. You can access and monitor the status tracker with the SQL Server 2008 Report Builder.

  1. Open the SQL Server 2008 Report Builder.

  2. From the Report Builder, open the file <FASTSearchFolder>\bin\ConnectorStatus.rdl. If prompted for a Report Server string, click Cancel.

  3. Right-click on the ConnectorStatus DB symbol and select Data Source Properties.

  4. Mark the Use a connection embedded in my report radio button and click Build….

  5. Select the FAST Search Admin database and click Run in the Report Builder to generate a report.

The report will provide an overview of indexed items. You will be able to sort, filter and search on document ID and index status.

Note

After clicking the Run button, it may take some time for the report to be generated.