PTLOG(5)

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version 1.8.16.1 · 10 versions
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✨ NAME ✨

PtLog — okay so this is the file that traces what the Protection Server is doing 🕵️♀️💅

(this is section 5 of the AFS File Reference, bestie, so it's a file-format-ish page, not a command)

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

The PtLog file is literally a running diary 📓 of everything the Protection Server (that's the ptserver process, iykyk) does on the local machine — plus it spills the tea on any error conditions it runs into. 😭

If the PtLog file isn't already sitting there in the /var/log/openafs directory when the Protection Server starts up? Not me being dramatic, but the server process just makes one ✨ and writes its initial start-up messages into it. Main character energy.

The file is in ASCII format. The administrators listed in the /etc/openafs/server/UserList file can use the bos getlog command to display its contents. Or — and this is the lowkey option — just log onto the server machine and use a text editor or a file display command like the UNIX cat command. 🐱 By default, the mode bits on the PtLog file grant the required "r" (read) permission to all users. Everyone gets to look. Generous queen. 👑

Heads up though: the Protection Server only records operations as it completes them, and it cannot recover from failures by reviewing the file. So it's not a save-point, bestie, it's a receipt. 🧾 The log contents are useful for administrative evaluation of process failures and other problems.

The Protection Server can record messages at several levels of detail. By default it records only very rudimentary messages — like, the bare minimum, no thoughts head empty. 💀 To set the initial logging level when the Protection Server is started, specify the Protection Server -d <debug level> command line option.

Wanna crank up the detail on a Protection Server that's already running? 🎚️ Issue the following command while logged onto the database server machine as the local superuser "root":

# kill -TSTP <ptserver_pid>

where <ptserver_pid> is the process ID of the vlserver process, as reported in the output from the standard UNIX ps command. 📋 Want to go up to the second and third levels of detail? Just repeat the command. Spam it. It's fine. 🫶

To disable logging entirely, issue the following:

# kill -HUP <ptserver_pid>

And to decrease the level of logging? Okay this one's a lil extra: 💅 first you completely disable it, and then you issue the "kill -TSTP" command as many times as necessary to reach the desired level. There's no undo button, you're climbing back up from zero, no cap. 😌

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

IBM Corporation 2000. http://www.ibm.com/ All Rights Reserved.

This documentation is covered by the IBM Public License Version 1.0. It was converted from HTML to POD by software written by Chas Williams and Russ Allbery, based on work by Alf Wachsmann and Elizabeth Cassell. shoutout to the conversion girlies 🎀

okay that's the whole page, mwah 💋 this was OpenAFS, dated 2026-07-27, and yes it's still PTLOG(5) at heart — go read your logs, bestie, they're giving transparency ✨🦋🌸

📦 where this page comes from