Stop storing log files in C:\ProgramData\Solarwinds

In our organization (at least) there is a practice of separating applications from the operating system when it comes to storage.

Typically the C: drive on a windows system belongs to the Windows Administrators and the , E:, etc belong to the Application Administrators.

We have received complaints from our Windows Administrators that SolarWinds products consume excessive space on the C: drive causing them problems. This shows up around patching time in paticular.

Please:

Relocate the log files stored in C:\ProgramData\Solarwinds to $InstallDir\logs

Chris

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Comments

RaviK

A very practical ask .. surely a must-have for scalability

dmatar

I have to agree, not having that ability is quite the disappointment on orions part

nideville

Really necessary !

FormerMember

It's been a long time since I was a Windows system admin, but even 15 years ago it was standard that C: drive was for the Operating System and drive was application data.This separation protected the OS from shutting down if an errant application decided to fill a drive up. I've only been an Solarwinds admin for a few months, and the first month I experienced the SLW Orion server c: drive filling up.

Solarwinds Enhancement request - move applog files to the d: drive

It was due to debugging being one plus IIS logs file being on the c: drive, but it was also because our Windows server team used the traditionally small c: drive size along with the traditionally gigantic d: drive size. I've turned the logging level down and moved the IIS logs to d: , but I still feel the need constantly monitor the c: drive since it can fill up quickly.

This idea should be merged with idea https://thwack.solarwinds.com/ideas/4652

fkondon

Hi Chris,

How can I relocate the log files stored in C:\ProgramData\Solarwinds to $InstallDir\logs ??

please advise.

Many thanks

jtimes

I really didn't have this "issue" until I got brand new servers finally, YEAH!, and unfortunately my organization chose to size the OS partition (c: drive) to the smallest size possible, Booooo. This has gone on for way to long without notice from both the user community as well as development.

I totally agree with ikomrad

This idea should be merged with idea https://thwack.solarwinds.com/ideas/4652

ACDII

Just ran across this myself. Was trying to figure out WHY my C drive had 5 Gb free when Windows was only 17Gb. Found the hidden ProgramData folder with all these lovely log files. Would like to log to D drive instead.

darcydressell44

Has anybody found a solution to this problem?

After submitting numerous tickets to Solarwinds, their answer was:

"Solarwinds uses the Windows %ALLUSERSPROFILE% to store it's logs. This is not configurable with in the Solarwinds environment as it's a Windows setting.

If you need to move this, you would need to change the Windows variable. This is a global Windows setting, like temp, windir etc."

sierra1011

Out of curiosity, has anyone tried creating a folder junction between the drives? Seems like a bad workaround, but if it works...

rschroeder

I had so many problems with this issue that I had to build a new Resource for my NPM front page to give me a clue about when any Polling Engine was using so much space for logging that it would soon go toes-up. Coupled into this is the issue that JobEngineV2 was experiencing MANY problems and generating LOADS of space-consuming items that it had no business doing. Fortunately, that particular problem appears to have been resolved in 12.2 after hotfix 4 or 5, but the general logging space problem remains.

The logging space issue was made worse when my SA's limited C-drive space to 100 GB (even as Solarwinds only logs to the C drive), but kluging around the issue by bumping the space up to 300 or 500 GB merely delayed the onset of "APE Toes-Up Syndrome". The fix was preventing the problem, not throwing more space at it.

And the Resource (below) was a great tool for letting me know about a problem before it grew so large that a server would become unreachable.

Here's how I built the Resource (with thanks to the many SW staffers or Thwack members who helped make it work for me!):

The Custom SWQL Query:

SELECT n.caption as [Node]

, v.Caption as [Volume]

, round(v.VolumePercentUsed,1) as [Space Used]

,round(v.volumespaceavailable/1073741824,1) as [Free GB]

,case when f.DaysToCapacityPeak is null then 'No Forecast'

when f.DaysToCapacityPeak<0 then 'Full'

when f.DaysToCapacityPeak<91 then tostring(f.DaysToCapacityPeak)

when f.DaysToCapacityPeak>90 then '>90 Days'

end as [Days til Full],

v.DetailsUrl as [_linkfor_Volume]

, n.DetailsUrl as [_linkfor_Node]

,'/Orion/images/StatusIcons/Small-' + n.StatusIcon AS [_IconFor_Node]

, case when fc.WarningThreshold is null and v.VolumePercentUsed > (Select CurrentValue AS [col1] FROM Orion.Settings WHERE SettingID = 'NetPerfMon-DiskSpace-Error') then '/Orion/images/StatusIcons/Small-Critical.gif'

when fc.WarningThreshold is null and v.VolumePercentUsed > (Select CurrentValue AS [col1] FROM Orion.Settings WHERE SettingID = 'NetPerfMon-DiskSpace-Warning') then '/Orion/images/StatusIcons/Small-Warning.gif'

when v.VolumePercentUsed>f.CriticalThreshold then '/Orion/images/StatusIcons/Small-Critical.gif'

when v.VolumePercentUsed>f.WarningThreshold then '/Orion/images/StatusIcons/Small-Warning.gif'

end as [_Iconfor_Space Used]

,'/Orion/images/StatusIcons/Small-' + v.StatusIcon AS [_IconFor_Volume]

from orion.Volumes v

join orion.nodes n on n.nodeid=v.nodeid

left join Orion.ForecastCapacitySettings fc on fc.InstanceId=v.VolumeID and fc.metricid=3

left join Orion.ForecastCapacity f on f.InstanceId = v.VolumeID and f.EntityType='Orion.volumes'

left join Orion.AlertSuppression asup on asup.entityuri = n.uri

where v.FullName in (Insert the names of any of your APE's here, in the correct Query format)

order by currentvalue desc

wluther

cgregors While it's not an official option/feature from SolarWinds, there is actually a very nice and easy way to accomplish this, when building out your server(s).

I followed a few guides from KMSigma, and my SolarWinds environment has been running super smooth ever since.

Automating Orion Server Installs - Builds from Scratch

Automating Orion Server Installs - After the O/S

Automating Orion Server Installs - Final Prep

After following these guides, I now have the different pieces of my SolarWinds world living on their own storage continents, none of which are messing with the others.

Thank you,

-Will

uncle_solarwinds

Thanks wluther, but there is no way to know that SolarWinds would behave this way ahead of time, so why should we have to supplement the official documentation just to avoid an abuse of C:\ProgramData.

Poor design, SolarWinds. Please indicate a way for us to modify the log directory.

Thank you

yaquaholic

KMSigma did a rather good post on how he builds an Orion server, and puts the ProgramData on it's own drive.

Well worth a read - How I Build an Orion Server » Kevin's Ramblings