Exchange ActiveSync Device Errors Test

In order to enable administrators to quickly troubleshoot current issues with ActiveSync, the eG Exchange Monitor intelligently reads ActiveSync-related errors/warnings/general information messages captured recently (i.e., in the last 5 minutes) from the client access server’s log file and writes them to the ActiveSynchLog.log file it creates in the <eg_agent_install_dir>\agent\logs directory. At specified intervals, this test scans the ActiveSynchLog.log file for configured patterns of errors and reports the number and nature of such errors (if found). 

For this test to work, the Exchange ActiveSync User Agents Test should be running and reporting metrics.

Target of the test : A Microsoft Exchange 2013/2016 server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every searchpattern configured

Configurable parameters for the test
  1. Test period - How often should the test be executed
  2. Host - The host for which the test is to be configured.
  3. port – The port at which the server listens
  4. alertfile – By default, the full path to the ActiveSynchLog.log file is set here.

  5. searchpattern - Enter the specific patterns of alerts to be monitored. The pattern should be in the following format: <PatternName>:<Pattern>, where <PatternName> is the pattern name that will be displayed in the monitor interface and <Pattern> is an expression of the form - *expr* or expr or *expr or expr*, etc. A leading '*' signifies any number of leading characters, while a trailing '*' signifies any number of trailing characters.  

    For example, say you specify ORA:ORA-* in the SEARCHPATTERN text box. This indicates that "ORA" is the pattern name to be displayed in the monitor interface. "ORA-*" indicates that the test will monitor only those lines in the alert log which start with the term "ORA-". Similarly, if your pattern specification reads: offline:*offline, then it means that the pattern name is offline and that the test will monitor those lines in the alert log which end with the term offline.  

    A single pattern may also be of the form e1+e2, where + signifies an OR condition. That is, the <PatternName> is matched if either e1 is true or e2 is true.

    Multiple search patterns can be specified as a comma-separated list. For example: ORA:ORA-*,offline:*offline*,online:*online

    If you want all the messages in a log file to be monitored, then your specification would be: <PatternName>:*.

  6. lines - Specify two numbers in the format x:y. This means that when a line in the alert file matches a particular pattern, then x lines before the matched line and y lines after the matched line will be reported in the detail diagnosis output (in addition to the matched line). The default value here is 0:0. Multiple entries can be provided as a comma-separated list. 

    If you give 1:1 as the value for LINES, then this value will be applied to all the patterns specified in the SEARCHPATTERN field. If you give 0:0,1:1,2:1 as the value for LINES and if the corresponding value in the SEARCHPATTERN filed is like ORA:ORA-*,offline:*offline*,online:*online then:

    0:0 will be applied to ORA:ORA-* pattern

    1:1 will be applied to offline:*offline* pattern

    2:1 will be applied to online:*online pattern

  7. excludepattern - Provide a comma-separated list of patterns to be excluded from monitoring in the EXCLUDEPATTERN text box. For example *critical*, *exception*. By default, this parameter is set to 'none'. 
  8. uniquematch - By default, the UNIQUEMATCH parameter is set to FALSE, indicating that, by default, the test checks every line in the log file for the existence of each of the configured SEARCHPATTERNS. By setting this parameter to TRUE, you can instruct the test to ignore a line and move to the next as soon as a match for one of the configured patterns is found in that line. For example, assume that Pattern1:*fatal*,Pattern2:*error* is the SEARCHPATTERN that has been configured. If UNIQUEMATCH is set to FALSE, then the test will read every line in the log file completely to check for the existence of messages embedding the strings 'fatal' and 'error'. If both the patterns are detected in the same line, then the number of matches will be incremented by 2. On the other hand, if UNIQUEMATCH is set to TRUE, then the test will read a line only until a match for one of the configured patterns is found and not both. This means that even if the strings 'fatal' and 'error' follow one another in the same line, the test will consider only the first match and not the next. The match count in this case will therefore be incremented by only 1.

  9. rotatingfile - This flag governs the display of descriptors for this test in the eG monitoring console.

    If this flag is set to true and the alertfile text box contains the full path to a specific (log/text) file, then, the descriptors of this test will be displayed in the following format: Directory_containing_monitored_file:<SearchPattern>. For instance, if the alertfile parameter is set to c:\eGurkha\logs\syslog.txt, and rotatingfile is set to true, then, your descriptor will be of the following format: c:\eGurkha\logs:<SearchPattern>. On the other hand, if the rotatingfile flag had been set to false, then the descriptors will be of the following format: <FileName>:<SearchPattern> - i.e., syslog.txt:<SearchPattern> in the case of the example above. 

    If this flag is set to true and the alertfile parameter is set to the directory containing log files, then, the descriptors of this test will be displayed in the format: Configured_directory_path:<SearchPattern>. For instance, if the alertfile parameter is set to c:\eGurkha\logs, and rotatingfile is set to true, then, your descriptor will be: c:\eGurkha\logs:<SearchPattern>. On the other hand, if the rotatingfile parameter had been set to false, then the descriptors will be of the following format: Configured_directory:<SearchPattern> - i.e., logs:<SearchPattern> in the case of the example above.

    If this flag is set to true and the alertfile parameter is set to a specific file pattern, then, the descriptors of this test will be of the following format: <FilePattern>:<SearchPattern>. For instance, if the alertfile parameter is set to c:\eGurkha\logs\*sys*, and rotatingfile is set to true, then, your descriptor will be: *sys*:<SearchPattern>. In this case, the descriptor format will not change even if the rotatingfile flag status is changed .

  10. casesensitive - This flag is set to No by default. This indicates that the test functions in a 'case-insensitive' manner by default. This implies that, by default, the test ignores the case of your alertfile and searchpattern specifications. If this flag is set to Yes on the other hand, then the test will function in a 'case-sensitive' manner. In this case therefore, for the test to work, even the case of your alertfile and searchpattern specifications should match with the actuals.

  11. rolloverfile - By default, this flag is set to false. Set this flag to true if you want the test to support the 'roll over' capability of the specified alertfile. A roll over typically occurs when the timestamp of a file changes or when the log file size crosses a pre-determined threshold. When a log file rolls over, the errors/warnings that pre-exist in that file will be automatically copied to a new file, and all errors/warnings that are captured subsequently will be logged in the original/old file. For instance, say, errors and warnings were originally logged to a file named error_log. When a roll over occurs, the content of the file error_log will be copied to a file named error_log.1, and all new errors/warnings will be logged in error_log. In such a scenario, since the rolloverfile flag is set to false by default, the test by default scans only error_log.1 for new log entries and ignores error_log. On the other hand, if the flag is set to true, then the test will scan both error_log and error_log.1 for new entries.

    If you want this test to support the 'roll over' capability described above, the following conditions need to be fulfilled:

    • The alertfile parameter has to be configured only with the name and/or path of one/more alert files. File patterns or directory specifications should not be specified in the alertfile text box.
    • The roll over file name should be of the format: “<alertfile>.1”, and this file must be in the same directory as the alertfile.
  12. overwrittenfile - By default, this flag is set to false. Set this flag to true if log files do not 'roll over' in your environment, but get overwritten instead. In such environments typically, new error/warning messages that are captured will be written into the log file that pre-exists and will replace the original contents of that log file;  unlike when 'roll over' is enabled, no new log files are created for new entries in this case. If the overwrittenfile flag is set to true, then the test will scan the new entries in the log file for matching patterns. However, if the flag is set to false, then the test will ignore the new entries. 

  13. encodeformat – By default, this is set to none, indicating that no encoding format applies by default. However, if the test has to use a specific encoding format for reading from the specified alertfile , then you will have to provide a valid encoding format here - eg., UTF-8, UTF-16, etc.  Where multiple log files are being monitored, you will have to provide a comma-separated list of encoding formats – one each for every log file monitored. Make sure that your encoding format specification follows the same sequence as your alertfile specification. In other words, the first encoding format should apply to the first alert file, and so on. For instance, say that your alertfile specification is as follows: D:\logs\report.log,E:\logs\error.log, C:\logs\warn_log. Assume that while UTF-8 needs to be used for reading from report.log , UTF-16 is to be used for reading from warn_log . No encoding format need be applied to error.log. In this case, your encodeformat specification will be: UTF-8,none,UTF-16.

    Note:

    If your alertfile specification consists of file patterns that include wildcard characters (eg.,/tmp/db/*dblogs*,/tmp/app/*applogs*), then such configurations will only be supported in the ANSI format, and not the UTF format.

  14. dd frequency - Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against dd frequency.

  15. To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

    The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

    • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability
    • Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Recent errors:

Indicates the number of errors that were added to the ActiveSynchLog.log file when the test was last executed.

Number

The value of this measure is a clear indicator of the number of “new” errors detected in ActiveSync. The detailed diagnosis of this measure, if enabled, provides the detailed descriptions of the errors of the configured patterns.