Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 : Analysis and Troubleshooting Tools - Using SMS Trace (part 2)

2/12/2014 3:07:25 AM

Searching for Text

If you’re looking for a particular text string—perhaps a filename or an extension or a package or advertisement ID—you can ask SMS Trace to find the log entry that contains that text string. To do so, follow these steps:

1.	Start SMS Trace and open the log file you want to search. Highlight the first log entry.
2.	Choose Find from the Tools menu to display the Find dialog box, as shown in Figure 4. Figure 4. The Find dialog box.
3.	Enter the text string you want to search for. This can be a partial string. To make this a case-sensitive search, select the Case Sensitive check box.
4.	Click Next. The entry that contains the text string you entered will be highlighted in the log file if it exists.
5.	To view the next entry with this text string, choose Find from the Tools menu, and then click Find Next in the Find dialog box. To view the previous entry, choose Up as the Direction and then click Find Next in the Find dialog box.

Highlighting Text

Perhaps, as you open multiple log files, you would like to highlight any entry that references a particular text string. For example, when a site setting is modified, Hierarchy Manager and Site Control Manager both create and reference files back and forth. While monitoring the flow of this interaction, you might choose to highlight the lines that reference specific files or file extensions to better view how the two components work with each other and hand files back and forth. To use SMS Trace to specify text that should be highlighted as it occurs in the log file, follow these steps:

1.	Start SMS Trace.
2.	Choose Highlight from the Tools menu to display the Highlight dialog box, as shown in Figure 5. Figure 5. The Highlight dialog box.
3.	Enter the text string you want SMS Trace to look for. This can be a partial string. To make this a case-sensitive search, check the Case Sensitive check box.
4.	Click OK.
5.	Open the desired log file or files. As the log files are opened, any entry that contains the referenced string will be highlighted with a box surrounding the entry.

Filtering the SMS Trace View

Log files can get filled up quickly and contain hundreds of entries. Perhaps you’re interested only in certain types of entries—for example, status message entries or entries that contain a reference to a particular package ID. SMS Trace provides a filter tool that can facilitate your view of these kinds of entries. To filter the SMS Trace view, follow these steps:

1.	Start SMS Trace and open the log file or files you want to filter.
2.	Choose Filter from the View menu to display the Filter dialog box, as shown in Figure 6. Figure 6. The Filter dialog box.
3.	Notice that you can filter what you see in the log window based on Entry Text, Component, Thread, and Time values. For each filter that you want to apply, select an appropriate operator and then enter the value you’re filtering on. For example, in Figure 6 we’re looking only for lines in the log file in which the entry text contains the string value “S0000001”. Make your selections and click OK. SMS Trace will refresh the screen and show only the entries you filtered for.

Note

Once you have filtered a log in this manner, you can’t turn off the filter without first closing the log file. After you close the log file, you can go back into the Filter Settings dialog box and change your filter options or clear them to turn them all off.