Dialogic Voice Cards - Controlling the size of the ctdaemon log file

Introduction

One aspect of troubleshooting Dialogic® Natural Access (NA) issues involves the enabling of ctdaemon tracing. The ctdaemon tracing is controlled by setting the TraceFile and TraceMask keywords in the cta.cfg file which is typically found in the following locations:

Windows: \nms\ctaccess\cfg
Solaris/Linux: /opt/nms/ctaccess/cfg 
           
TraceFile   = define the trace file path and name.
TraceMask = define the default tracing mask.

Depending upon the complexity of the issue being investigated, it may be necessary to enable several tracing flags and leave logging enabled until the issue occurs again.  This may cause the ctdaemon log file to grow to several hundred megabytes in size.

Solution

A feature added after NA 2005 SP5 allows you to control the maximum size of the ctdaemon log file based upon the name of the log file.

The filename syntax is "ctaXMB.log" where X is the maximum number of megabytes that will be logged before the file wraps. Since the filesize is limited to 31 bits (0x7fffffff), the filesize is limited to 2.1 GB or 2100 MB.

When the feature is enabled and ctdaemon is started, the existing ctaXMB.log file will be truncated.
Before the log file wraps the first time, the following information will appear at the beginning of the ctaXMB.log file, using cta20MB.log as an example:

Wrap around cta trace activated. Filename: \nms\cta20MB.log File size of 20000000 bytes.

Once the log file wraps, the text <<< TRACE_END >>> will mark the last log entry.

Since this feature was added after NA 2005 SP5, if you are running NA 2005, you can install patch 6068; this patch includes the ctdaemon executable.

Software Products

Dialogic Natural Access 8.x
Dialogic Natural Access 9.x