Description

A service can be defined in order to monitor the guests log files to look for key removal messages (based on interval defined on the dongle) and/or informational, warning and error messages. It also monitors in parallel dongle removal (immediate mode).

The service works with a list of log files to be monitored.

The log file name must be defined with full path within the configuration file.

 Rotating log files are supported only with Charon-AXP and Charon-VAX V4.7 minimum

If the Charon log monitoring (global) option is set to enabled (default) in the preferences, the log monitoring service is created automatically when creating a virtual machine from menu option VM Management (add/remove VM, start, stop, console connection, ...).

Management

This option offers the possibility to edit the log file list, start/stop monitoring for a guest, view the guest log file, view the monitoring log file, install or update log monitoring service for Linux servers without "systemd" feature (Red Hat 6) or to manage "systemd" services for Linux servers with "systemd" (Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 7 & 8) and to start/restart the aksusb log monitoring.

Example - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7:

Notes:

• The list of monitored log files is automatically filled with the log files found in the configuration files for guests defined with the Manage monitored guests logs menu option when selecting the "Update log files list" option 1.
• The install/update service option will just restart the log monitoring service and not the guest.
• The aksusbd log monitoring will look into the "/var/log/messages" log file (Red Hat 6) or will check the journalctl (Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 7 & 8) and will send an alert on dongle removal and dongle detected quite immediately
• The guest log monitoring:
  • will send alerts when information, warning and error messages will be detected depending on the alert level defined at Alerts management - Select guests log alert level. Note alerts will be send in a bulk email message by default: one alert every 1 minute based on crontab entry settings for '/opt/charon/utils/charon_logevent' (see Manage recursive jobs: license expiration check, log events (cron))
  • It will also send alerts on guest start and stop
  • Dongle removal and detection alert messages will be sent based on license check interval defined with the license (default is 1 hour).
  • Each time a license is detected in the guest log file, an expiration check will occur and will send alerts if necessary
  • On rare cases, the dongle can be seen as unplugged whereas it is still plugged in leading the virtual machine to stop. The log monitoring feature is then able to detect this case and perform the necessary actions. More information is available in our Knowledge base in this article: CHARON for Linux - Detected removal of the license whereas dongle is connected
• If you remove a guest from the "Service management - Update guests list" option, the log monitoring service will be removed from the list
• In case you're using regular (main) and backup license dongles, you will receive a "License dongle found" alert on dongle switch.
  If the alert tells you the license detected is a "Runtime limited license", you'll have to replace your regular dongle as soon as possible.
• If you have more than one virtual machine running on the same server, do not use the same log file name more than once even if the log folders are different
• If you change the folder of an existing virtual machine, you'll have to update the service manually (Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 7 & 8)

Example

Connection lost with the active license:

The license status is monitored if:

• The log monitoring is active
• Charon-AXP and/or Charon-VAX version 4.9 minimum is/are installed
• The Linux server is running Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 7 or 8

Alert mail sent (if configured):

Connection established with the backup license: