Checkbox 7 - On Premises - Configuring Error Logging

Checkbox 7 On Premises has a variety of error logging options that can be used to track down issues that you might encounter.

Please note that some items that are logged are not errors with Checkbox. For example, the system logs invalid API requests, which, on any public installation, will occur from web crawlers and bots.

Default Logging Configuration / Installation Step

Out of the box, Checkbox is configured to log to both the Checkbox database in the ckbx_Log table AND to create log files in your API\App_Data_Logs folder.

Important note: You will need to give write access to this folder for logging to work. Follow these instructions to figure out which user is being used by IIS (alternatively, you can grant access to the IUSR group) and give this user or group write permission to the above folder only.   

Changing the Default Log File Location

It is possible to change the location where physical log files are stored on your web server.

To do this, you will need access to the API\Configs\Logging.config file. Follow these steps:

1. Create the folder that you want to use for your log files (For this example, we will use c:\LogFiles -- you can change this to whatever you would like)
2. Grant write permission access to this folder for the user that is used by IIS (see instructions above if you are unsure of how to do this)
3. Edit the logging.config file and add a file sink (see the <file> tag in the sample below) that uses your new folder path
4. Save the file and restart IIS.

Sample logging.config file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Checkbox.Logging minLogLevel="Warning">
 <sinks>
<file name="File" logDirectory="C:\\LogFiles" />
 </sinks>
</Checkbox.Logging>

Changing the Logging Level to Debug Mode

Note: Using debug mode can have an impact on performance. It can also write a significant amount of data to your database and web server's disk. We only recommend doing this if you have a specific need or are instructed to do so by Checkbox Support. Remember to switch back to "Warning" when complete.

Inside the API\Configs\Logging.config file, you will find the following line, which sets the current logging level to "Warning" mode.

<Checkbox.Logging minLogLevel="Warning">

If you'd like to change to debug mode, change "Warning" to "Debug" and then save the file. After you restart IIS the logging level is changed to Debug mode.