Zephyrus Software Inc. - AlertView help

AlertView™ Help

Concepts

AlertView opens an Oracle alert log file, parses it into individual events, categorizes them and displays them in a tree view. The left window shows the tree view. Expand and collapse nodes to display or hide events. Selecting an event displays the event text in the right window. Only alerts that are within the specified time period and of the specified type are shown.

AlertView opens local and remote alert log files. A local file is any file on the same computer as alert view or any file that can be viewed by the computer. This includes shared drives on Microsoft networks and any mounted drives on Unix networks. A remote file is any file that can be read over an FTP connection, including files on a Unix system.

To open an alert log, select either 'Open Local' or 'Open Network' from the 'File' menu. Enter the file information and select OK. The file is parsed into individual events, categorized and displayed in the tree view.

The display is static. It shows the alert events that existed when the file was opened. If you want to update the display, then select 'View...Refresh'. This clears the alert tree and parses the alert log again. This also works if you change the options (time period or alert types). Select 'View...Refresh' and the new information is displayed.

Opening a local file

Select 'File...Open Local' from the main menu and a file selection dialog box appears. It defaults to the directory and file name specified in the 'File Defaults' dialog box. Either accept the default file or select a new file and select OK. The file is parsed and displayed in the alert tree. Events are shown that match the criteria specified in the 'Search Options' dialog box.

Opening a network file

Select 'File...Open Network' from the main menu. The dialog box defaults to the information specified in the 'File Defaults' dialog box. Either accept the defaults or enter new information and select OK. The file is parsed and displayed in the alert tree. Events are shown that match the criteria specified in the 'Search Options' dialog box.

Field descriptions:

Server: Enter the server name or IP address, such as dbserv, dbserv.mycompany.com or 192.168.0.1.
Port: The ftp port number. This will almost always be 21.
User: A username on the remote system that has access to the alert log file. This is usually the owner of the Oracle database.
Password: The password for this user.
Directory: The directory containing the Oracle alert log
File name: The name of the alert log file (alert_SID.ora).

Display

The event tree heading is either:

The date and time of the event
A brief description of the event
Both the timestamp and the description

The display is changed by selecting 'View...Headings' from the menu and selecting the display type. The default display type is set in the 'Display Options' dialog box (see below).

The display look and feel is either:

The system interface, a the native display for the platform you are using. It looks like the Windows interface on Window, the Motif interface on Unix, etc.
The metal interface, an interface developed for Java that looks the same across all platforms.
The motif interface
The windows interface

The look and feel is changed by selecting 'View...Look and Feel' from the main menu and selecting the desired value. The default look and feel is set in the 'Display Options' dialog box (see below).

Other display features:

The Title bar shows the date range
The Root node in the tree view shows the alert log file name
Each category node shows the number of events in that category

Event Types

The 'Chronological' event type displays all events. So, if you display all the event types, you will get two copies of each event. One in the proper category (DDL, Error, etc.) and one in the chronological list. The 'Other' event tree should be empty. If there is an event in 'Other', it is probably due to a parsing error. Please send information to bugs@zephyrus.com and I will fix the parsing problem. The 'Checkpoint' event tree will be empty unless you set the LOG_CHECKPOINTS_TO_ALERT flag in the init.ora file.

Setting File Defaults

Select the 'Edit...File Defaults' menu item to set the default alert file information. You can enter defaults for one local connection and one remote connection. See the sections on 'Opening a local file' and 'Opening a network file' for more information.

Setting Search Options

Select the 'Edit...Search Options' menu item to select which alerts are displayed in the tree view.

Setting Display Options

Select the 'Edit...Display Options' menu item to set the start-up options, the default look and feel, and the default heading type for the event tree.