hpux nfslogd man page on unix.com

nfslogd(1M) nfslogd(1M)

NAME
nfslogd - nfs logging daemon

SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
The daemon provides operational logging to the HP-UX NFS server. It is the daemon's job to generate the activity log by analyzing RPC
operations processed by the NFS server. The log will only be generated for file systems exported with logging enabled. This is specified
at file system export time by means of the share_nfs(1M) command.

Each record in the log file includes a time stamp, the IP address (or hostname if it can be resolved) of the client system, the file or
directory name the operation was performed on, and the type of operation.

In the basic format, the operation can either be an input (i) or output (o) operation. The basic format of the NFS server log is compati-
ble with the log format generated by the Washington University daemon. The log format can be extended to include directory modification
operations, such as and The extended format is not compatible with the Washington University daemon format. See nfslog.conf(4) for
details.

The NFS server logging mechanism is divided in two phases. The first phase is performed by the NFS kernel module, which records raw RPC
requests and their results in work buffers backed by permanent storage. The location of the work buffers is specified in the file. Refer
to nfslog.conf(4) for more information.

The second phase involves the user-level daemon, which periodically reads the work buffers, interprets the raw RPC information, groups
related RPC operations into single transaction records, and generates the output log. The daemon then sleeps waiting for more information
to be logged to the work buffers. The amount of time that the daemon sleeps can be configured by modifying the parameter in The work buf-
fers are intended for internal consumption of the daemon.

NFS operations use file handles as arguments instead of path names. For this reason the daemon needs to maintain a database of file handle
to path mappings in order to log the path name associated with an operation instead of the corresponding file handle. A file handle entry
is added to the database when a client performs a lookup or other NFS operation that returns a file handle to the client.

Once an NFS client obtains a file handle from a server, it can hold on to it for an indefinite time, and later use it as an argument for an
NFS operation on the file or directory. The NFS client can use the file handle even after the server reboots. Because the database needs
to survive server reboots, it is backed by permanent storage. The location of the database is specified by the parameter in the file.
This database is intended for the internal use of the daemon.

In order to keep the size of the file handle mapping database manageable, prunes the database periodically. It removes file handle entries
that have not been accessed in more than a specified amount of time.

The configurable parameter in specifies the interval length between successive runs of the pruning process. A file handle record will be
removed if it has not been used since the last time the pruning process was executed. Pruning of the database can effectively be disabled
by setting the as high as

When pruning is enabled, there is always a risk that a client may have held on to a file handle longer than the and perform an NFS opera-
tion on the file handle after the matching record in the mapping database had been removed. In such case, the pathname for the file handle
will not be resolved, and the log will include the file handle instead of the pathname.

There are various configurable parameters that affect the behavior of the daemon. These parameters are found in and are described below:
Sets the file mode for the log files, work buffer files and file handle mapping database.

Specifies the minimum size, in bytes, that the buffer file must reach
before processing the work information and writing to the log file. The value of must be between 1 and the maximum file size that
is supported by the file system where the buffer file resides.

Specifies the amount of time, in seconds, the daemon should sleep while
waiting for more information to be placed in the buffer file. also determines how often the configuration file will be reread.
The value of must be between 1 and

The periodically cycles its logs. specifies the maximum number of log files to save. When is reached, the oldest files will be over-
written as new log files are created. These files will be saved with a numbered extension, beginning with The oldest file will
have the highest numbered extension up to the value configured for The value of must be between 1 and

Specifies how often, in hours, the log files are cycled.
is used to insure that the log files do not get too large. The value of must be between 1 and

Specifies the time interval, in seconds, between updates
of the records in the file handle to path mapping tables. Instead of updating the of a record each time that record is accessed,
it is only updated if it has aged based on this parameter. The record access time is used by the pruning routine to determine
whether the record should be removed from the database. The value of this parameter must be between 1 and

Specifies when a database record times out, in hours.
If the time that elapsed since the record was last accessed is greater than then the record can be pruned from the database. The
default value for is 168 hours (7 days). The value of must be between 1 and

EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:

Daemon started successfully.
Daemon failed to start.

FILES
system record of logged file systems
NFS server logging configuration file
default parameters for

AUTHOR
was developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

hpux man page for nfslogd