Enable Client Logs

NCache now provides logging for client application and socket level. Logging is disabled by default, but it can be enabled by specifying log settings through API in NCache application or NCache configuration file(client.ncconf).

These logs contain information of client operations and also usage data of operations propagated through socket server to communicate with remote server. These logs are created in the default location where NCache logs are saved.

Note

This feature is available for NCache Version 4.9.1 and onwards.

In order to enable client logs programmatically for a cache NCache provides CacheInitParams. You can further specify the log level for client logs which are explained below.

Special Considerations

  • If client.ncconf file contains the enable-client-log values and user passes them through CacheInitParams as well, the values passed by CacheInitParams will be of high priority and they will be used.

  • If either of the values (EnableClientLogs or LogLevel) is passed through CacheInitParams and both of them are set in the client.ncconf it will read the one provided from CacheInitParams and the one not provided in CacheInitParams, from client.ncconf.

    For example if client logs are enabled using CacheInitParams and LogLevel is not specified, it will enable client logs irrespective of the value in Client.ncconf and use the value of log-level from client.ncconf since it is not provided through CacheInitParams

  • If no values are passed in CacheInitParams it will read the values from client.ncconf.

  • If no values are provided through client.ncconf, neither in the CacheInitParams, it will read the default set values. Default values are:

    • EnableClientLogs: False
    • LogLevel: Error

Examples

Example 1:

In this example, even if any values are given in client.config they will be overwritten and values provided through CacheInitParams will be used.

try
{   
    string cacheName = "demoClusteredCache";

    CacheInitParams cacheParams = new CacheInitParams();

    // Enable client logs by setting the flag true
    cacheParams.EnableClientLogs = true;

    // Set the log level for client logging
    cacheParams.LogLevel = LogLevel.Debug;

    // Initialize the cache with cacheInitParams
    Cache cache = NCache.InitializeCache(cacheName,cacheParams);
}
catch (OperationFailedException ex)
{
    if (ex.Message.Contains("No server is available to process the request"))
    {
        // Make sure NCache Service is running
        // Make sure that the cache is  running
    }
    else if (ex.Message.Contains("'client.ncconf' not found"))
    {
        // Given cache name does not exist in client.ncconf 
        // (hint: check your spelling)
        // Or client.ncconf does not contains server info
    }
    else if (ex.Message.Contains("cacheId cannot be an empty string"))
    {
        // Make sure that the cache name is not an empty string
    }
    else
    {
        // Exception can occur due to:
        // Connection failures
        // Operation performed during state transfer
        // Operation timeout
    }
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    // Any generic exception like ArgumentNullException or ArgumentException
}

Recommendation: To ensure the operation is fail safe, it is recommended to handle any potential exceptions within your application, as explained in Handling Failures.

Example 2:

In this example, LogLevel is not mentioned through CacheInitParams so it will look for the next possible value i.e value of log-level in client.ncconf and use it. In case it is not mentioned there it will use default values.

try
{
    string cacheName = "demoClusteredCache";

    CacheInitParams cacheParams = new CacheInitParams();

    // Enable client logs by setting the flag true
    cacheParams.EnableClientLogs = true;

    // Initialize the cache with cacheInitParams
    Cache cache = NCache.InitializeCache(cacheName,cacheParams);
}
catch (OperationFailedException ex)
{
    if (ex.Message.Contains("No server is available to process the request"))
    {
        // Make sure NCache Service is running
        // Make sure that the cache is  running
    }
    else if (ex.Message.Contains("'client.ncconf' not found"))
    {
        // Given cache name does not exists in client.ncconf
        // (hint: check your spelling)
        // Or client.ncconf does not contains server info
    }
    else if (ex.Message.Contains("cacheId cannot be an empty string"))
    {
        // Make sure that the cache name is not an empty string
    }
    else
    {
        // Exception can occur due to:
        // Connection failures
        // Operation performed during state transfer
        // Operation timeout
    }
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    // Any generic exception like ArgumentNullException or ArgumentException
}

Recommendation: To ensure the operation is fail safe, it is recommended to handle any potential exceptions within your application, as explained in Handling Failures.

Example 3:

In this example, client logs are not enabled through CacheInitParams so it will look for the next possible value i.e value of enable-client-log in client.ncconf and use it. In case it is false, logs will not be enabled.

try
{
    string cacheName = "demoClusteredCache";

    CacheInitParams cacheParams = new CacheInitParams();

    // Set the log level for client logging
    cacheParams.LogLevel = LogLevel.Debug;

    // Initialize the cache with cacheInitParams
    Cache cache = NCache.InitializeCache(cacheName,cacheParams);
}
catch (OperationFailedException ex)
{
    if (ex.Message.Contains("No server is available to process the request"))
    {
        // Make sure NCache Service is running
        // Make sure that the cache is  running
    }
    else if (ex.Message.Contains("'client.ncconf' not found"))
    {
        // Given cache name does not exists in client.ncconf
        // (hint: check your spelling)
        // Or client.ncconf does not contains server info

    }
    else if (ex.Message.Contains("cacheId cannot be an empty string"))
    {
        // Make sure that the cache name is not an empty string
    }
    else
    {
        // Exception can occur due to:
        // Connection failures
        // Operation performed during state transfer
        // Operation timeout
    }
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    // Any generic exception like ArgumentNullException or ArgumentException
}

Recommendation: To ensure the operation is fail safe, it is recommended to handle any potential exceptions within your application, as explained in Handling Failures.

Types of Logging

Following are the types of logging:

  • INFO: Info level describes some useful information about any operation performed on cache, such as log starting and stopping state of state transfer operations.

  • ERROR: This log flag gives the cause of errors that are raised during operation execution. This status log is useful in most of troubleshooting scenarios such as during start of cache exception which occurs for joining with its own replica.

  • DEBUG: This log option prints detailed information about any operations in cache such as information of each operation like key, cache items during state transfer. This log information is useful to analysis cache issues in details whenever normal debugging is not possible and drilling any hidden issue. But this causes performance degradation for cache operations.