samlog_viewer(1)

NAME

samlog_viewer — a tool for viewing and saving the SAM logfile

SYNOPSIS

/usr/sam/bin/samlog_viewer [-s mmddhhmm[[cc]yy]] [-e mmddhhmm[[cc]yy]] [-l SDVC] [-u user] [-o ofile] [-t] [-n] [file]

DESCRIPTION

The samlog_viewer command enables the viewing of part or all of the SAM logfile (or another file containing data in the same format) at varying levels of detail. This tool is run by SAM whenever the View SAM Log option is chosen. It can also be run independently of SAM, in either interactive or noninteractive mode.

The samlog_viewer command executes in either interactive or noninteractive mode, depending on the options given. In noninteractive mode, samlog_viewer filters the source file and writes the resulting data either to stdout or to a destination file. In interactive mode, samlog_viewer displays a graphical user interface enabling you to try different combinations of filtering, save one or more versions of the source file to other files, scroll back and forth among the logfile entries, etc.

Under no circumstances is samlog_viewer destructive to the contents of the SAM logfile (or whatever source file is specified by file). The contents of the source file are filtered and displayed (or output) according to the settings of the available filters. Multiple instances of samlog_viewer can be run simultaneously without harmful effects.

Filters

samlog_viewer supports three types of filters: level of detail, date/time, and user filters. These filters can be used in combination to provide highly selective logfile viewing.

The level of detail filters control how much detail is displayed. The SAM logfile may contain entries of many different types. The entry types currently supported are: summary, detail, verbose, error, and note. The level of detail filters display some or all of these entry types, depending on which filter is chosen. The level of detail filters are:

Summary: Displays only the higher level messages. These include summary, error, and note (warnings, other entries worthy of special attention) entry types.
Detail: Includes Summary level of detail, and adds detail log entries. If no level of detail is specified, this is the default.
Verbose: Includes Detail level of detail, and adds verbose log entries.
Commands Only: Displays only the literal commands that were executed. These commands may include HP-UX commands as well as SAM commands and scripts.

The date/time filters are used to ask for entries written since a specific date/time, before a specific date/time, or both.

The user filters are for viewing only those entries written by a particular user. If invoked with the -u option, its argument is used as the user whose entries should be shown.

If user filtering is selected by the -u option, samlog_viewer displays only entries made by that user and disallows any changes to the user filtering. This is useful for allowing nonprivileged users to run samlog_viewer and see only those entries that pertain to them. Otherwise, samlog_viewer allows the user filtering to be changed, or completely disabled, from its interactive filtering screen.

Options

The following options enable you to set up filtering and other attributes. If samlog_viewer runs interactively, these attributes may also be set and modified in the various supported menus and displays. The available options are:

-s mmddhhmm[[cc]yy]

The -s option sets the start date/time filter to the date/time given by its argument. The date/time is specified in the same way as it is for the date command (see date(1)):

mm

Month specified as a two digit number (e.g., 08).

dd

Day specified as a two digit number.

hh

Hour specified as a two digit number (24-hour clock form).

mm

Minute specified as a two digit number.

cc

Century minus one. cc is optional when specifying the year.

yy

The last two digits of the desired year. If this is not specified, the current year is used.

Note: To specify a year in two digits, the valid ranges are 70-99 (20th century) and 00-37 (21st century).

To specify a year in four digits, the valid range is 1970-2037.

If no start time is given, the beginning of the log is used as the start time.

-e mmddhhmm[[cc]yy]

The -e option sets the end date/time filter to the date/time given by its argument. The date and time is specified as described above for the -s option. If no end time is given, then an end date/time of infinity (no end time) is used.

-l SDVC

The -l option sets the desired level of detail. One of the letters SDVC must be specified as the required argument. The level of detail is set as follows:

S = Summary
D = Detail
V = Verbose
C = Commands Only

If the -l option is not specified, the Detail level of detail is used by default.

-u user

The -u option sets the user filter to the user name or user ID specified by user. Only entries logged by this user are displayed. If the -u option is omitted, entries logged by all users are displayed by default.

-o ofile

The -o option causes the filtered output to be written to the output file ofile. The -o option implies the -n option described below. If ofile is -, the output is written to stdout. If -o is omitted, the output is written to either stdout (if -n is specified) or to the interactive samlog_viewer display (if -n is omitted).

-t

The -t option enables automatic timestamping. If specified, each log entry is tagged with the time of day at which it was written. Timestamping is disabled by default.

-n

The -n option forces noninteractive behavior. If specified, samlog_viewer runs noninteractively, using the default or specified values for all supported options and source/destination files.

file

Specifies the name of the file from which log data is read. The format of the data in the specified file must be the same as that used for raw SAM logfile data. If omitted, the SAM logfile is read. If file is -, stdin is read and samlog_viewer runs noninteractively. If given, file must be the last argument specified on the command line.

EXAMPLES

Capture the current contents of the SAM logfile using default filtering, and put into the file sam.out:

samlog_viewer -n >sam.out 

The following example does the same thing:

samlog_viewer -o sam.out 

View only the commands executed by SAM on behalf of user tom, between 8am June 5, 1994 and 10pm August 14, 1994, and view the data interactively:

samlog_viewer -s 060508001994 -e 081422001994 -lC -u tom 

Noninteractively read data from stdin, timestamp it, and save the result in a file called stdin.out:

cat datafile | samlog_viewer -t -o stdin.out - 

Do the same as above, but instead have the data appear on stdout:

cat datafile | samlog_viewer -t -o - - 

cat datafile | samlog_viewer -tn - 

FILES

/var/sam/log/samlog: SAM logfile.
/var/sam/log/samlog.old: Archived version of samlog, created when the logfile is automatically trimmed by SAM when its size becomes too large. Its contents are included in the log entries read by samlog_viewer.
/tmp/LFV_pid: Temporary files used by samlog_viewer.
/tmp/LFV_RUNpid

samlog_viewer(1)

Technical documentation

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