Audit database (no enties are added)

[ciber]

Hi All,

We have set-up the Cognos Audit functionality.
We can't see any errors (Cognos Services).
Have set the logging to basic.
We have stop and start alle Services and logged out / in again.
(We are using Cognos 8.2)


There are no entries in the Audit database tables.

What can we do wrong?

Please help.

Thanks!

[ciber]

Nobody ???

[cognos_guru]

Check your configuration..

Did you set up logging to an audit database?
Verify the connection settings are correct.
Make sure the DB user has the ability to read, write, etc etc...

There is a really great document on the support site for setting up audit logging and the installation/configuration guide is helpful as well.

[RudiHendrix]

I have a somewhat similar issue.

If I look at my Cognos Configuration I see in the "logging" area two entries: both file and database are there. May this be causing a problem?

I have compared the machine that is creating the log files correctly. All settings are the same. Only downside is that I cannot check the Cognos Configuration of the machine that is logging correctly.

I have no clue of what is going wrong!

[ciber]

Hi cognos_guru,

I know all the install documents have read them.
Done all the steps.

I created a logging database;
Tested the connection (no errors)
Have set the logging level to basis.
The DB user has all the rights.
Everything works fine and I can't see any error, but there are no entries in the Audit entities.

What can more do to check beside the install documents ?

[ciber]

Hi Plantje,

You should have two entries in the logging area.
One for the file logging (default)
One for the database logging.

I have done many Cognos installations including the Audit functionality.
Until now I knew all undocumented issues how to install the Audit functionality.
What can I check / do next?

Until now, Cognos / IBM only mails me the 'default' installation documentation, but that's what I done and know  :-\

There must be a way to check something I hope?

[RudiHendrix]

I thought one needed EITHER a file logging entry OR a database logging entry in the logging area.

Yesterday I talked to somebody from Cognos and he stressed that it's very important to have sufficient rights for the user that accesses the logging database.

I'm using an Oracle database. What are you using?

[twlarsen]

Are you doing any tracing with Cognos support for other problems?  Some of the tracing that cognos support does actually disables audit logging.  I've ran into that before.

[RudiHendrix]

No tracing here.

Yesterday I found an additional statement in the documentation stating the logging database may not be the same as the content store database. (So I had that wrong)

Therefore I created a new schema in the same instance and created a new entry in the Cognos configuration (and deleted the old one of course) to have Cognos write it's logging to this new database.
Again (after stopping/starting the services) I saw the tables being created again.

But still: no logging!

The strange thing is: if I import a package or something (like the sample databases etc) I DO get some logging. But just running a report doesn't create log entries! :(

[ciber]

Hi Plantje,

We are using SQL Server.
The user have the right rights for the database and the tables are created.
We also have deleted the Audit database and create it again.
No luck so far.

[ciber]

Hi twlarsen,

Also no Cognos tracing here....

(where are you disabling the logging functionality in Cognos?)

[RudiHendrix]

I've also added a new topic, because I think there is more wrong on our system.

Could you check if it is possible on your system to create IQD's for example? Or publish a Transformer Powercube to a shared directory? I can imagine specifically the latter one is not something you test in a few seconds.

[ciber]

Plantje,

Sorry, I can't test that.
It's our production Cognos Server.

IQD and PowerPlay cubes are created at the Development Cognos Server and connected to our Framework Project.
Then we can publish the packages to Production.
So whe don't are not developing at our production.
And .... I am not able to install software on our production Server.

[RudiHendrix]

Okay, that is understandable :)

[ciber]

Yeah thanks!

But i still have no sollution  ;D

Sometimes I just uninstall Cognos and reinstall Cognos again and it solves the problem.
But now I am not in controle of the Cognos server..........
And I think there must be an other way to fixe this.
What can I controle more to fixe or check.....

No errors in the log files,
No errors in the Windows Events,
No errors in SQL server,

But also no logging in the audit entities.....  ???

[Rajesh_Vanam]

What is logging level did u set in Cogno connection?

[RudiHendrix]

I had everything to basic.

However, if I go to the server, to the bin directory in the Cognos location and start logconsole.exe and logviewV2.exe I can pull up some logging of the server. However, it seems to pull it all from the text logging; the database remains empty at all times. Ciber, are you sure you always need both a text logging AND a database logging entry in Cognos configuration if you want to use database logging.

Further it has come to my attention that what we are looking for is not only logging of the server, but also activity monitoring. Am I looking in the entire wrong direction if I want to see the users currently logged in and what queries they are running?

[RudiHendrix]

We have logged a service request for this. Someone from Cognos gave the following reply:
"Ensure ipfclientconfig.xml  file does NOT exist in configuration folder (.sample files and other files do not matter, just the ipfclientconfig.xml)."

In our case the file WAS there. I renamed it to ipfclientconfig.xml.old, restarted the Cognos service and immediately we saw logs being entered in the database. I have asked them how and why the file was there in the first place, just to know what was going on. And the next thing is of course that I have to work with the audit package and get that figured out. But that should be a piece of cake now! :)

Enjoy your holidays everybody!

[ciber]

Plantje,

Thanks for your info / CALL request.
At our production server the ipfclientconfig.xml file was existing (the Server Administrator told me it wasn't, but it was....)
So, when we deleted the file, the Audit entries where there  ;D.

I don't know if you need both, but the file logging is default (I never tried to delete it, but why do you want so?)
Only when you need to use the Audit functionality (and why don't you want it, it give you good information) I know you need to add an entry to the Cognos Configuration.
The logviewV2.exe gets the information from the text file.

(?? Why doesn't have IBM/Cognos this information on the Cognos Forum ??)

(Sorry for my late reply)

ciber

[RudiHendrix]

Plantje,

Thanks for your info / CALL request.
At our production server the ipfclientconfig.xml file was existing (the Server Administrator told me it wasn't, but it was....)
So, when we deleted the file, the Audit entries where there  ;D.

Nice! :) To be honest: I'm pretty confident that I didn't rename the file myself. But then again...perhaps in some effort to get it to work. I know that it wasn't by default there when I installed 8.4.1 last week.

I don't know if you need both, but the file logging is default (I never tried to delete it, but why do you want so?)
Only when you need to use the Audit functionality (and why don't you want it, it give you good information) I know you need to add an entry to the Cognos Configuration.
The logviewV2.exe gets the information from the text file.

I deleted it at some point in an effort to get logging to the database working. I thought perhaps the system would get mixed up with two areas to store logging.

(?? Why doesn't have IBM/Cognos this information on the Cognos Forum ??)

Good question!

(Sorry for my late reply)

ciber

Nevermind that! It's just nice to hear other people were helped by it as well!

[johnpenna]

look in the IBM user guide, you need to enable logging on the dispatcher in cognos connection...By default they are set to minimal, you have to change them to basic..Check the doc on the IBM site,it shows you how to do it...When you change from minimal to basic you need to restart the services...

It should work ..I had the same problem and now it works fine..

[hiddenkirby]

We have logged a service request for this. Someone from Cognos gave the following reply:
"Ensure ipfclientconfig.xml  file does NOT exist in configuration folder (.sample files and other files do not matter, just the ipfclientconfig.xml)."

In our case the file WAS there. I renamed it to ipfclientconfig.xml.old, restarted the Cognos service and immediately we saw logs being entered in the database. I have asked them how and why the file was there in the first place, just to know what was going on. And the next thing is of course that I have to work with the audit package and get that figured out. But that should be a piece of cake now! :)

Enjoy your holidays everybody!

So far this sounds identical to the issue we are having.
We had cognos audit logging to a database working just fine .. then we upgraded the oracle database to oracle11g RAC configuration.

since then we were unable to successfully log to a db.

I do not have that file in my configuration directory.. on any of my cognos servers.  (yes to a .sample though)

Exact same behavior for us...  created tables just fine. correct user privelages. no errors anywhere. No rows populating in the log tables.

any other ipf config files i need to look out for?

Thanks,
    Kirby

[RudiHendrix]

Do you have the logging in a separate database schema?

[cognos_users]

check  if there is any 'ipfclientconfig' file under c8 location>configuration. If it exists, then tracing is going on which is the reason for the logs not being written on to audit dbase.

[RudiHendrix]

check  if there is any 'ipfclientconfig' file under c8 location>configuration. If it exists, then tracing is going on which is the reason for the logs not being written on to audit dbase.

As you can see in my reply on 25 Dec 2009 02:29:42 AM  this already has been suggested. For some people it is a solution for others there are some other issues.