Thread: Why does LOG have higher priority than ERROR and WARNING?
LOG messages have higher priority than ERROR and WARNING in log_min_messages (PANIC > FATAL > LOG > ERROR > WARNING) now. Can I reorder them to ERROR > WARNING > LOG ? It makes a difference to "per-destination minimum message levels" feature that I working on. LOG messages are often used for performance logging. On the other hand, WARNING and ERROR messages report something bad. It should be no surprise that users think ERRORs and WARNINGs are more important than LOGs. So, I think we should allow users to set log_min_messages to report only PANIC, FATAL, ERROR and WARNING messages in server logs. Am I missing something? Regards, --- ITAGAKI Takahiro NTT Open Source Software Center
Itagaki Takahiro <itagaki.takahiro@oss.ntt.co.jp> writes:
> LOG messages have higher priority than ERROR and WARNING
> in log_min_messages (PANIC > FATAL > LOG > ERROR > WARNING) now.
> Can I reorder them to ERROR > WARNING > LOG ?
No. That was an intentional decision. LOG is for stuff that we
really want to get logged, in most cases. ERROR is very often not
that interesting, and WARNING even more so.
regards, tom lane
Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > Itagaki Takahiro <itagaki.takahiro@oss.ntt.co.jp> writes: > > Can I reorder them to ERROR > WARNING > LOG ? > > No. That was an intentional decision. LOG is for stuff that we > really want to get logged, in most cases. ERROR is very often not > that interesting, and WARNING even more so. I think the decision is in hacker's viewpoint. Many times I see DBAs are interested in only WARNING, ERROR and FATAL, but often ignores LOG messages. We should use WARNING level for really important message -- and also priority of WARNINGs should be higher than LOGs. Another matter is that we use LOG level both cases of important activity logging and mere performance or query logging. Maybe we should have used another log level (PERFORMANCE?) for the latter case, and its priority is less than WARNINGs and LOGs. Regards, --- ITAGAKI Takahiro NTT Open Source Software Center
On Mon, 2009-09-14 at 09:16 +0900, Itagaki Takahiro wrote: > Another matter is that we use LOG level both cases of important > activity logging and mere performance or query logging. Maybe > we should have used another log level (PERFORMANCE?) for the > latter case, and its priority is less than WARNINGs and LOGs. Ideally, LOG messages are messages that you explicitly requested using various log_* parameters. If you need more control, we could conceivably add more of those.
On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 02:16, Itagaki Takahiro <itagaki.takahiro@oss.ntt.co.jp> wrote: > > Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > >> Itagaki Takahiro <itagaki.takahiro@oss.ntt.co.jp> writes: >> > Can I reorder them to ERROR > WARNING > LOG ? >> >> No. That was an intentional decision. LOG is for stuff that we >> really want to get logged, in most cases. ERROR is very often not >> that interesting, and WARNING even more so. > > I think the decision is in hacker's viewpoint. Many times I see > DBAs are interested in only WARNING, ERROR and FATAL, but often > ignores LOG messages. We should use WARNING level for really important > message -- and also priority of WARNINGs should be higher than LOGs. > > Another matter is that we use LOG level both cases of important > activity logging and mere performance or query logging. Maybe > we should have used another log level (PERFORMANCE?) for the > latter case, and its priority is less than WARNINGs and LOGs. I think the requirement you're talking about is the same one I was when I said I wanted a "logging source" thing. Which is basically that an ERROR log from a user query or stored procedure is often not interesting at all to the DBA - but it is to the developer. But an ERROR log from the background writer or a low-level routine is *very* interesting to the DBA. Basically, the log levels mean completely different things depending on where they're coming in from. -- Magnus HaganderMe: http://www.hagander.net/Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/