Controlling the size of the log

Trust Protection Platform logs event data into a centralized database so you can review and evaluate your system activity. The logged information is helpful for auditing, troubleshooting, and operational reviews.

Typically, the channel that is used is the Default SQL Channel. Its job is to log all events.1 Over time, the number of log entries can accumulate, taking up disk space and making the data more difficult to search and use. Minimizing the total number of logged events in the database improves the usability of the data and minimizes disk space usage.

IMPORTANT  If you do not want to delete logged events at all, you can disable log expiration altogether. However, if your log file is not managed correctly, it can grow large enough to use up all remaining disk space and significantly impact server performance.

You can specify how many days each log entry is kept before it is deleted automatically. When a logged event exceeds the number of days you specify, the log entry is deleted permanently.

NOTE   The default setting for log event deletion is 90 days. You can set any value between 0 and 3650. A setting of 0—or if you leave the value blank—disables log expiration.

To configure log event expiration in VCC

  1. In Venafi Configuration Console, navigate to Tools > Logging > Channels.

  2. Click Default SQL Channel in the center panel.

  3. Click Properties in the Actions panel.

  4. In the Automatically delete records older than field, set the number of days to maintain logs for this channel.

    The default number of days is 90.

  5. To disable automatic deletion of logs, uncheck the Automatically delete records ... option.

  6. Click OK.

TIP  Log expiration can also be set during the initial installation of Venafi Platform, and is one of the settings in the XML answer file you can use to provide initial configuration information for new servers.