System information

CHAPTER 24
System Monitoring and Logging
Chaos is inherent in all compounded things.
Strive on with diligence.
—The Buddha
Asterisk comes with several subsystems that allow you to obtain detailed information
about the workings of your system. Whether for troubleshooting or for tracking usage
for billing or staffing purposes, Asterisk’s various monitoring modules can help you
keep tabs on the inner workings of your system.
logger.conf
When troubleshooting issues in your Asterisk system, you will find it very helpful to
refer to some sort of historical record of what was going on in the system at the time
the reported issue occurred. The parameters for the storing of this information are
defined in /etc/asterisk/logger.conf.
Ideally, one might want the system to store a record of each and every thing it does.
However, there is a cost to doing this. On a busy system, with full debug logging ena-
bled, it is possible to completely fill the hard drive with logged data within a day or so.
It is therefore necessary to achieve a balance between detail and storage requirements.
The /etc/asterisk/logger.conf file allows you to define all sorts of different levels of log-
ging, to multiple files if desired. This flexibility is excellent, but it can also be confusing.
The format of an entry in the logger.conf file is as follows:
filename => type[,type[,type[,...]]]
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