Starting Situation

  • User might be interested to automatically forward order logs to some external location.
    • This allows to use log analysis tools such as Splunk® , Elasticsearch®  etc.
    • You are strongly advised not to access order logs from their original location with the JobScheduler Master's ./logs directory for analysis with 3rd party tools.
      • Log files are constantly updated, approx. every 5s, therefore you cannot decide when the log is completed and you should not block files that JobScheduler requires to access.
      • Log files are stored to the database on order completion and will be overwritten on disk with the next order starting for the same job chain.
  • The forwarding of logs therefore should start from the database and can be scheduled e.g. on a daily basis or more frequently to allow immediate log analysis.

Use Cases

Forward Order Logs from a job

The PowerShell CLI can be used by a job to forward logs. This requires prior installation of the JobScheduler PowerShell Module.

The Get-JobSchedulerOrderHistory cmdlet is used to retrieve order history items and to forward them to the Get-JobSchedulerOrderLog cmdlet within a job. Two flavors of the job are available for Windows and Linux. The difference is not about the handling of cmdlets or parameters but due to the fact that PowerShell is invoked differently on Windows and Linux. For Windows environments usually PowerShell is available with the OS, for Linux the job has to call pwsh to invoke the PowerShell.

Please consider that below jobs are examples that have to be adjusted for your environment.

Windows Version for use with Agents

Download: forward_order_logs_windows.job.xml

Forward Order Logs (Windows Agent version)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<job title="Forward Order Logs" process_class="agent_windows">
  <params>
    <param name="history_results_directory" value="/tmp/history"/>
  </params>
  <script language="powershell"><![CDATA[
Import-Module $env:SCHEDULER_DATA/config/powershell/Modules/JobScheduler;
Connect-JS -Url $JOCCockpitUrl -Credential $JOCCockpitCredential | Out-Null;

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY | Out-Null;

# retrieve last history results if available
if ( Test-Path -Path "$($env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY)/order.history" -ErrorAction continue )
{
    $lastHistory = Import-Clixml -Path "$($env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY)/order.history";
} else {
    $lastHistory = Get-JobSchedulerOrderHistory -RelativeDateFrom -8h | Sort-Object -Property startTime;
}
 
# Copy log files to target directory
Get-JSOrderHistory -DateFrom $lastHistory[0].startTime | Tee-Object -Variable lastHistory | Get-JobSchedulerOrderLog | Select-Object @{name='path'; expression={ "$env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY/$(Get-Date $_.startTime -f 'yyyyMMdd-hhmmss')-$([io.path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($_.jobChain))-$($_.orderId).log"}}, @{name='value'; expression={ $_.log }} | Set-Content;
 
# store last history results to a file for later retrieval
$lastHistory | Export-Clixml -Path "$env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY/order.history";

Write-Output ".. logs forwarded to: $env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY";]]></script>
  <run_time/>
</job>

Explanations

  • Line 2: The job is executed with a Windows Agent that is assigned by a process class.
  • Line 3-5: Consider to adjust the history_results_directory parameter to point to a valid directory where to store the log files.
  • Line 6: The job is of type "powershell" and will use the Powershell version provided with the server.
  • Line 7: The JobScheduler PowerShell module is imported. The module could be installed with any location in the file system
  • Line 8: The Connect-JS cmdlet is used to authenticate with the JOC Cockpit REST Web Service. The required URL and credentials are specified in a PowerShell profile, see PowerShell CLI 1.2 - Use Cases - Credentials Management
  • Line 10: The target directory specified by the history_results_directory parameter is created should it not exist.
  • Line 13-18: Any previous execution of this job will create a file order.history that stores the latest history entries for which log files have been processed. If such a file exists then the value of the $lastHistory variable is restored and otherwise and initial query about the last 8 hours of order executions is used to populate the $lastHistory variable.
  • Line 21: The Get-JobSchedulerOrderHistory cmdlet is called 
    • with the parameter -DateFrom  $lastHistory[0].startTime to specify the most recent history entry to be processed.
      • optionally with additional parameters, e.g. to specify the date range for which logs are forwarded  A value -DateFrom (Get-Date -Hour 0 -Minute 0 -Second 0).AddDays(-7).ToUniversalTime() specifies that logs should be forwarded for the last 7 days (from midnight). Keep in mind that dates have to be specified for the UTC time zone. Without this parameter logs will be forwarded for the last day.
      • see the Get-JobSchedulerOrderHistory cmdlet for a full parameter reference.
    • the output of this cmdlet is pipelined to the Tee-Object cmdlet to store new values to the $lastHistory variable and to proceed with the pipeline.
    • the following pipeline step includes to read the order log for each entry reported by the Get-JobSchedulerOrderHistory cmdlet.
    • the next pipeline step includes to select properties from the pipeline that are forwarded to the Set-Content cmdlet that expects the Path and Value parameters. For the Path parameter the output directory and the file name for the log file are specified from the order's start time, job chain name and order ID.
  • Line 24: Finally the values returned by the $lastHistory variable are persistently written to disk for later retrieval.

Linux Version

Download: forward_order_logs_linux.job.xml

Forward Order Logs (Linux version)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<job title="Forward Order Logs" process_class="agent_linux">
  <params>
    <param name="history_results_directory" value="/tmp/history"/>
  </params>
  <script language="shell"><![CDATA[
pwsh -NoLogo -NonInteractive -Command '& {
    . $env:SCHEDULER_DATA/config/powershell/JobScheduler.PowerShell_profile.ps1;
    Import-Module $env:SCHEDULER_DATA/config/powershell/Modules/JobScheduler;
    Connect-JS -Url $JOCCockpitUrl -Credential $JOCCockpitCredential | Out-Null;
 
    New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY | Out-Null;

    # retrieve last history results if available
    if ( Test-Path -Path "$($env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY)/order.history" -ErrorAction continue )
    {
        $lastHistory = Import-Clixml -Path "$($env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY)/order.history";
   } else {
        $lastHistory = Get-JobSchedulerOrderHistory -RelativeDateFrom -8h | Sort-Object -Property startTime;
    }
 
    # Copy log files to target directory
    Get-JSOrderHistory -DateFrom $lastHistory[0].startTime | Tee-Object -Variable lastHistory | Get-JobSchedulerOrderLog | Select-Object @{name="path"; expression={ "$env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY/$(Get-Date $_.startTime -f 'yyyyMMdd-hhmmss')-$([io.path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($_.jobChain))-$($_.orderId).log"}}, @{name="value"; expression={ $_.log }} | Set-Content;
 
    # store last history results to a file for later retrieval
    $lastHistory | Export-Clixml -Path "$env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY/order.history";
                 
    Write-Output ".. logs forwarded to: $env:SCHEDULER_PARAM_HISTORY_RESULTS_DIRECTORY";
}'
]]></script>
  <run_time/>
</job>
</job>

Explanations

  • Basically the same explanations as for the Windows version of the job apply.
  • Line 7: The PowerShell has to be invoked with pwsh. Consider that any subsequent PowerShell commands are quoted within a string that starts with line 7 and that ends with line 29. 
    • As the string is using a single quote all subsequent PowerShell commands make use of double quotes when required.
    • You could apply a different quoting style, however, quotes have to be consistent.
  • Line 8: As an example a PowerShell profile is invoked that provides the variables for URL and credentials to access the JOC Cockpit REST Web Service. Such profiles can be stored in different locations and can be invoked automatically by pwsh on startup.


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