# Logging

Parallels RAS components are monitored and logs are created containing relevant information. Logs are used by Parallels RAS support engineers to analyze possible issues with a Parallels RAS installation. As a Parallels RAS administrator you have the ability to set the log level for a specific component or multiple components. By default, the standard log level is used, which collects and saves only the essential information. A Parallels RAS support engineer can ask you to enable the extended or verbose log level when an additional information is required to analyze an issue.

To set the log level for a specific component/server, navigate to the page in the RAS Console where the components of that type are listed (e.g. RD Session hosts, VDI, Gateways, Connection Brokers), select a component and then click **Tasks** (or right-click) > **Troubleshooting** > **Logging** > **Configure**. This opens the **Set Log Level** dialog where you can choose a log level from the following:

* **Standard** — This is the standard log level that records only the most important events. Unless you are asked by Parallels RAS support to use one of the log levels described below, you should always use this one.
* **Extended** — This logging involves more information than the standard logging, but it slows down the system because of the additional information that it needs to collect.
* **Verbose** — Verbose logging involves even more information than the extended logging and can slow down your system significantly.

Please note that to avoid degraded performance, extended and verbose logging should only be enabled for a limited time period (enough to collect the necessary information for analysis). You can set this time period using **Reset to the standard level after** option. The default value is 12 hours. In specific cases, a Parallels support engineer will advise you whether this time period should be set to a different value. Once this time period is over, the log level will be reset back to standard.

To retrieve a ZIP archive containing the log files, click **Tasks** (or right-click) > **Troubleshooting** > **Logging** > **Retrieve** and then specify a location where you want the file to be saved. The **Clear** item in the same context menu clears all logs.

Note that you can also set the log level on the **Farm** > \<Site> > **Settings** > **Global logging** tab, where you can see RAS components of all types in one list. For more information, see [**Site settings**](/landing/ras-admin-guide/parallels-ras-21-administrators-guide/common-management-tasks/site-settings.md).

### Log rotation

Parallels RAS log rotation works as follows:

1. When the total size of all log files reaches a predefined size (200 MB by default), the logs are archived. This is done log by log by appending the current timestamp to the filename and starting a new empty log file.
2. A new ZIP file is created for each old log named %logname%\_%DATE%.zip . (e.g. console\_10.06.2018.zip, controller\_10.06.2018.zip).
3. Renamed old logs are moved to the ZIP file. Parallels RAS keeps five ZIP files by default.
4. When the maximum number of archived files is exceeded, the oldest file is deleted.
5. This log rotation mechanism guarantees that the total log file size never exceeds X \* Y \* Z MB, where X is the total size of all log files (200 MB by default), Y is the maximum number of ZIP files (5 by default) and Z is the number of RAS components.
6. The X and Y values from the example above are pre-configured in Windows registry on a computer hosting a given RAS component. The default values are the same for every RAS component. To modify the values, navigate to HKEY\_LOCAL\_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Wow6432Node > Parallels and set the LogMaxSize and LogMaxBackups values for a RAS component. Restart the services after modifying the values.


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