Avamar: How to gather logs and info to investigate Administrator console (MCGUI) issues
Summary: How to gather logs and information to investigate Avamar Administrator console (MCGUI) issues
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Instructions
When diagnosing issues relating to the Avamar Administrator console, there are two components to consider:
To diagnose UI-related issues, gather the following information.
a) Logs from both the Avamar Administrator client AND the Avamar Administrator server.
status.dpn
dpnctl status
ps -elf | grep java
top
c) Informational details from the client
d) Check the version of java installed on the client.
e) Make a note of the exact operating system running on the client.
f) Take a screenshot of the issue, if applicable.
g) When did the issue start to occur?
h) Are there any other Avamar Administrator clients which connect to the same server but are working as normal?
Avamar MC service logs
The MC server logs contain information pertaining to all activities relating to functions such as
The server-side logs are verbose and require careful parsing to obtain the required information:
Log Location: On the utility node in /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_log/.
Naming: Avamar MC server logs are named mcserver.log.x. The log being actively written to is named mcserver.log.0.
Rotation and Retention: When mcserver.log.0 reaches 11 MB in size, the logs are rotated and renamed. mcserver.log.0 becomes mcserver.log.1 and so on. By default the utility node retains up to 50 mcserver.log files (numbered 0 to 49).
If the default retention is insufficient, see the "Additional Notes" section to learn how to increase it.
Logs under var/mc/server_log are included as part of the bundle when running getlogs or getnodelogs on the Avamar Utility Node.
Avamar MC client logs
Each Avamar Administrator client machine has its own set of MC client logs.
The logs contain information specific to that instance of the client and can be useful when investigating issues related to the Avamar UI behavior.
Location: The logs are stored on a per user basis in the following directory.
C:\Users\<WINDOWSUSER>\.avamardata\var\mc\gui_log\
Naming: The format is similar to Avamar MC server logs. Each log is named mcclient.log.x with the active log (the one currently being written to), named mcclient.log.0.
Rotation and Retention: Logs are rotated in a similar way to server side logs with the active log eventually renamed to mcclient.log.1.
Since the client log only records information specific to itself, retention and log size would not be expected to be an issue.
- Avamar Server MCS service
- Avamar Client Administrator interface (MCGUI)
To diagnose UI-related issues, gather the following information.
a) Logs from both the Avamar Administrator client AND the Avamar Administrator server.
- This helps us learn what is happening from the perspective of each side. More information about logs for client and server is found in the 'resolution' and 'notes' sections below.
- Make a note of the exact time that the problem occurred. Mention the time and time zone of both client and server.
status.dpn
dpnctl status
ps -elf | grep java
top
c) Informational details from the client
- From within Avamar Administrator, select Help --> About. This displays client and server version details.
d) Check the version of java installed on the client.
- From Windows Control Panel, search for Java and open the Java Control Panel. Check the versions of Java installed and enabled as shown in the example below.
e) Make a note of the exact operating system running on the client.
f) Take a screenshot of the issue, if applicable.
g) When did the issue start to occur?
h) Are there any other Avamar Administrator clients which connect to the same server but are working as normal?
Avamar MC service logs
The MC server logs contain information pertaining to all activities relating to functions such as
- The Avamar Administrator interface
- Management activity
- Backup scheduling
- Control of backup, replication and restore activities,
- Interaction with integrated VMware systems,
- User authentication,
- Database updates and queries,
- Job throttling and queueing according to available Avamar server connections,
- Client polling
- Connection negotiation,
- Event notification,
- Reporting
- And so on
The server-side logs are verbose and require careful parsing to obtain the required information:
Log Location: On the utility node in /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_log/.
Naming: Avamar MC server logs are named mcserver.log.x. The log being actively written to is named mcserver.log.0.
Rotation and Retention: When mcserver.log.0 reaches 11 MB in size, the logs are rotated and renamed. mcserver.log.0 becomes mcserver.log.1 and so on. By default the utility node retains up to 50 mcserver.log files (numbered 0 to 49).
If the default retention is insufficient, see the "Additional Notes" section to learn how to increase it.
Logs under var/mc/server_log are included as part of the bundle when running getlogs or getnodelogs on the Avamar Utility Node.
Avamar MC client logs
Each Avamar Administrator client machine has its own set of MC client logs.
The logs contain information specific to that instance of the client and can be useful when investigating issues related to the Avamar UI behavior.
Location: The logs are stored on a per user basis in the following directory.
C:\Users\<WINDOWSUSER>\.avamardata\var\mc\gui_log\
Naming: The format is similar to Avamar MC server logs. Each log is named mcclient.log.x with the active log (the one currently being written to), named mcclient.log.0.
Rotation and Retention: Logs are rotated in a similar way to server side logs with the active log eventually renamed to mcclient.log.1.
Since the client log only records information specific to itself, retention and log size would not be expected to be an issue.
Additional Information
Best Practice when gathering logs for an Avamar Administrator issue
- Make a note of the time on both the client and the server (do not assume they are synchronized)
- Reproduce the behavior
- Gather the mcserver.log and mcclient.log files immediately.
- Trim the logs before the timestamps noted in step 1. This helps reduce the size of the log which must be parsed to make it easier to review only the messages relevant only to the behavior we are investigating.
- Zip the log and upload it to the service request.
How to increase the default mcserver.log file size
This is most useful where there are many, active, virtual machine or DTLT clients.
Increase the log retention by:
- Increasing the size of each log, and
- Increasing the number of logs retained.
Switch to the lib directory
cd /usr/local/avamar/lib/
Edit mcserver_logging.properties:
Find the section "# Filehandler properties"
Change from the default values:
java.util.logging.FileHandler.limit = 10485760 java.util.logging.FileHandler.count = 50
To these suggested increased values:
java.util.logging.FileHandler.limit = 33554432 java.util.logging.FileHandler.count = 99
This means that the log size increases from 10 MB to 32 MB per log. The number of retained logs increases from 50 to 99.
This provides about six times more log retention than the default configuration.
The MC server must be restarted for this change to take effect.
Affected Products
AvamarProducts
Avamar, Avamar Client, Avamar ServerArticle Properties
Article Number: 000038388
Article Type: How To
Last Modified: 06 Feb 2025
Version: 5
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