Deleting Log and Trace Files (SAP Library - Database Administration (Oracle) with SAPDBA)

Deleting Log and Trace Files

It is important that you regularly delete old log and trace files, particularly those which were created by the database system.

If the log file directory for the database ALERT and trace files fills up, the database system issues error messages which can be hard to analyze. To free more space, you should also regularly delete the operating system audit trail.

SAPDBA enables you to delete the following types of log and trace files:

Logs and any directories of SAPDBA, BRBACKUP, BRARCHIVE

SAPDBA logs and associated directories for which the action is marked as an error in the main log are not deleted from SAPDBA.

The deletion of BRBACKUP/BRARCHIVE logs means that the information for the corresponding backups in the Computing Center Management System of the R/3-system can no longer be displayed. Also note the following: If an backup for which the corresponding log has been deleted needs to be restored with SAPDBA, you must first restore the log.

Always ensure that there is a sufficiently large number of logs present (SAPDBA recommended value: only delete logs older than 30 days).

ORACLE trace files: SAPDBA deletes the appropriate database and user trace files without backing them up (directory <SAPDATA_HOME>/saptrace/background or <SAPDATA_HOME>/saptrace/usertrace).
ORACLE audit logs: SAPDBA deletes the appropriate files without backing them up (directory <ORACLE_HOME>/rdbms/audit). If more than 4095 files appear in the audit trail, SAPDBA can only delete 4095 audit logs at once. To delete additional logs, repeat the operation.

If you do not explicitly specify the number of days for which deletion of the logs/directories should be blocked, the default values generally set in the profile init<DBSID>.dba will be used (see Sample Initialization Profile).

ALERT File

The ALERT file (alert_<DBSID>.log) of the database system is stored in directory <SAPDATA_HOME>/saptrace/background. Database activities are logged continuously in this file. If database problems occur, you can use this file to find out what happened. This means that the ALERT file contains very important information. For this reason, SAPDBA does not provide an option for deleting this file. This is for your own data security.

Audit Logs

Audit logs contain information about the inspected database action, the user who performed the operation, and the date and time of the operation. Audit logs can be saved in the operating system audit trail (<ORACLE_HOME>/rdbms/audit). Even when no explicit auditing is active, ORACLE writes an auditing log for every logon to the database. As a result, the directory may grow very quickly. Regularly delete the old audit logs.

Command Line Options

You can also delete log, trace, and audit files with the command option sapdba -cleanup (also see SAPDBA Command Mode). Check whether the parameters in init<DBSID>.dba are configured correctly (see Initialization Profile init<DBSID>.dba). When this option is called, SAPDBA deletes all the above log files and directories that are older than the specified interval (in days).