How to setup a standalone J2EE Log Viewer

volkerdrees · ‎12-09-2008

In some projects administrators hesitate to provide OS access to their servers – at least on a permanent basis. Especially in a Duet or Alloy installation it is sometimes helpful to quickly access e.g. the defaultTrace.trc while troubleshooting or monitoring some scenario.

One option would be to use the NetWeaver Administrator to display the default-Trace via the local Browser. Another option is to install a standalone log viewer. The standalone log viewer is part of the regular installation of a J2EE engine, but can also be installed on a local computer to remotely access the trace files from the server.

You can either copy the standalone log viewer from the J2EE’s file system, or you can download an install it on your own.

The latter is described in this Blog. Whenever you want to locally run any of the J2EE tools (e.g. the standalone log viewer) please ensure that you use the same version as the J2EE engine itself. Otherwise you might get a warning popup informing you about the different versions.

How to download and setup a standalone J2EE 7.0 log viewer:

Download the necessary file from the SAP Service Marketplace (SMP) and store it on your local file system. In this example we are downloading the SP17 log viewer for a 7.0 J2EE engine.
Rename the .SCA File into a .ZIP file
Unpack the ZIP-file:
Navigate into folder “DEPLOYARCHIVES”
Rename “logviewer-standalone-fs.sda” into .zip
Unpack the ZIP-File:
Navigate into folder “logviewer-standalone” and start logviewer.bat. This launches the standalone log viewer.
From the menu choose “File” --> “Configuration…”
Press “Add…” to add a new J2EE server. In the popup provide the name, hostname and the port number (in this case 50004), set Connection to “J2EE” and also provide User name and Password:
Press OK on both screens to close the Configuration popup. As the “Connect” flag is set by default, the log viewer automatically tries to connect to the J2EE engine.