Creating a log parser

Enterprise information systems of all kinds generate various types of log files such as access logs, activity logs and error logs. These log files usually contain log records constructed in proprietary formats. The lack of a common convention for logging makes cross-system analysis such as event correlation very difficult.

With the aid of the Generic Log Adapter framework, programmers can contribute static parsers and parsers based on pre-defined rules to the Import wizard in the Log and Trace Analyzer tool. In a rule-based parser, an adapter configuration file containing parsing rules expressed in regular expression grammar is provided to the Generic Log Adapter engine. In a static parser, the adapter configuration file contains a reference to a Java class that performs the log file parsing.

To create a log parser:

  1. Set up a log parser plug-in project
  2. Create an adapter configuration file for one of the following parsers:
  3. Configure a plug-in manifest file
  4. Test the log parser
Related Concepts
Overview of the Hyades Generic Log Adapter
Common Base Event format specification
Adapter Configuration File structure