The Event Log Viewer Page

Purpose

This screen is used to view Event Log entries. Log entries are generated when specific actions are taken inside the application, such as:

any change to the user accounts
running the sanity check
running the ID gaps check
any data deletion event
creating, closing or re-opening a project
creating a LaTeX report file

Each Event Log entry records a specific event, its author and the exact time at which it occurred. It will be assigned a severity ranging from 'debug' to 'critical'. It may also record the address of the client that issued the request, as well as a browser identification string.

The Event Log is by definition immutable and as such can only be viewed. Non-admin users will only be allowed to view the events they generated themselves.

By default, the Event Log is presented sorted with the most recent events on top (descending order).

Getting There...

The Event Log Viewer screen is not available straight from the Main Application Menu. To reach it:

From the Main Application Menu (or indeed almost any other Project Hirtius page), click on the "Manage Users" icon in the header ().
Scroll to the bottom of the page. Click on the Event Log link located on the right, between the Users List and the page footer. This gets you to the Event Log Viewer.

N.B.: a similar link is available from the Database Statistics Page.

Fields

Each entry in the list will use the following layout:

Who

When

Severity

Message

Client

User Agent

And here is the meaning of each of these fields:

ID: Event Log entry ID (sequential number, primary key).
Who: The login ID of the user who initiated the action that triggered the creation of the Event Log entry.
When: Exact timestamp for the creation of the Event Log entry. Please note that this timestamp is stored and displayed using the time zone of the Hirtius server, not that of the client (should they differ).
Severity: A value representing the "severity" of the event being recorded. Values will range from 'debug' (lowest) to 'critical' (highest). The list of supported severities is defined in the Global Definitions File.
Message: A short text describing the action / event being recorded.
Client: The IP address or fully-qualified host name (if available) of the client machine from where the request was issued that initiated the action being logged.
User Agent: A string that can help identify the browser being used (brand and version) on the client machine from where the request was issued that initiated the action being logged.

Controls

Sort order bar

The first row of controls beneath the page header allows the user to select the desired sort order for the list. The currently active sort order is rendered as text, whereas all other available choices are rendered as HTML links. Here are the three available choices:

by ID: (default). Ordered by decreasing log entry ID.
by severity: ordered by decreasing severity, then by decreasing log entry ID.
by owner: ordered by increasing login name, then by decreasing log entry ID.

Selecting a different sort order always returns you to the top of the list (as defined by that order).

Navigation bar

The second row of controls beneath the page header allows the user to navigate the Event Log entries based on the currently selected sort order (see above). Some action links (prev and next) may be rendered as text when not applicable.

Here are the available actions:

First: jump to top of list (first record).
Prev: show previous page (i.e. previous chunk of 'N' records, where 'N' is a value defined in the Global Definitions File).
All: show all records on a single page. Depending on the length of the list, this may be more than your browser can handle, and it may make it crash.
Next: show next page (i.e. next chunk of 'N' records, where 'N' is a value defined in the Global Definitions File).
Last: jump to bottom of list (last record).