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getLog

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  • Definition
  • Compatibility
  • Syntax
  • Command Fields
  • Output
  • Behavior
  • Filtering
  • Examples
getLog

getLog is an administrative command that returns the most recent 1024 logged mongod events. getLog does not read log data from the mongod log file. It instead reads data from a RAM cache of logged mongod events. To run getLog, use the db.adminCommand() method.

getLog returns log data in escaped Relaxed Extended JSON v2.0 format. Previously, log data was returned as plaintext.

This command is available in deployments hosted in the following environments:

  • MongoDB Atlas: The fully managed service for MongoDB deployments in the cloud

Note

This command is supported in all MongoDB Atlas clusters. For information on all commands, see Unsupported Commands.

The command has the following syntax:

db.adminCommand(
{
getLog: <value>
}
)

The possible values for getLog are:

Value
Description
*
Returns a list of the available values to the getLog command.
global
Returns the combined output of all recent log entries.
startupWarnings
Returns log entries that may contain errors or warnings from MongoDB's log from when the current process started. If mongod started without warnings, this filter may return an empty array.

Note

The getLog command no longer accepts the rs value, as this categorization of message type has been deprecated. Instead, log messages are now always identified by their component - including REPL for replication messages. See Filtering by Component for log parsing examples that filter on the component field.

If specified *, then the command returns a document with the names of the other acceptable values.

Otherwise, the command returns a document that includes the following fields:

  • totalLinesWritten field that contains the number of log events

  • log field that contains an array of log events

  • A db.adminCommand() response document, containing status and timestamp information.

getLog truncates any event that contains more than 1024 characters.

getLog returns log data in escaped Relaxed Extended JSON v2.0 format, using the following escape sequences to render log output as valid JSON:

Character Represented
Escape Sequence
Quotation Mark (")
\"
Backslash (\)
\\
Backspace (0x08)
\b
Formfeed (0x0C)
\f
Newline (0x0A)
\n
Carriage return (0x0D)
\r
Horizontal tab (0x09)
\t

Control characters not listed above are escaped with \uXXXX where "XXXX" is the unicode codepoint in hexadecimal. Bytes with invalid UTF-8 encoding are replaced with the unicode replacement character represented by \ufffd.

getLog output can be filtered to make results more readable or to match on specific criteria.

The following operation prints just the log field (which contains the array of all recent log events), and removes character escaping from each log message:

db.adminCommand( { getLog:'global'} ).log.forEach(x => {print(x)})

This operation presents getLog output in the same format as the MongoDB log file.

Note

getLog only shows the most recent 1024 logged mongod events, and is not a replacement for the MongoDB log file.

When working with MongoDB structured logging, the third-party jq command-line utility is a useful tool that allows for easy pretty-printing of log entries, and powerful key-based matching and filtering.

jq is an open-source JSON parser, and is available for Linux, Windows, and macOS.

To use jq with getLog output, you must use the --eval option to mongosh. The following operation uses jq to filter on the REPL component to present only those log messages associated with replication:

mongosh --quiet --eval "db.adminCommand( { getLog:'global'} ).log.forEach(x => {print(x)})" | jq -c '. | select(.c=="REPL")'

Be sure to provide any necessary connection-specific parameters to mongosh as needed, such as --host or --port.

See Parsing Structured Log Messages for more examples of filtering log output using jq. The jq syntax presented in each linked example can be used with the above mongo --eval operation with minor adjustment. For example, the following syntax adapts the linked "Counting Unique Messages" example for use with getLog:

mongosh --quiet --eval "db.adminCommand( { getLog:'global'} ).log.forEach(x => {print(x)})" | jq -r ".msg" | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -10

The following operation, run from mongosh, returns the available log filters for passing to getLog:

db.adminCommand( { getLog: "*" } )

The operation returns the following document:

{ "names" : [ "global", "startupWarnings" ], "ok" : 1 }

The following operation, run from mongosh, retrieves the most recent global events for the mongod:

db.adminCommand( { getLog : "global" } )

The operation returns a document similar to the following:

{
"totalLinesWritten" : <num>,
"log" : [
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:48.871+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"STORAGE\", \"id\":4615611, \"ctx\":\"initandlisten\",\"msg\":\"MongoDB starting\",\"attr\":{\"pid\":12345,\"port\":27001,\"dbPath\":\"/var/lib/mongo\",\"architecture\":\"64-bit\",\"host\":\"server1.example.com\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:48.871+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"CONTROL\", \"id\":23403, \"ctx\":\"initandlisten\",\"msg\":\"Build Info\",\"attr\":{\"buildInfo\":{\"version\":\"4.4.0\",\"gitVersion\":\"328c35e4b883540675fb4b626c53a08f74e43cf0\",\"openSSLVersion\":\"OpenSSL 1.1.1c FIPS 28 May 2019\",\"modules\":[],\"allocator\":\"tcmalloc\",\"environment\":{\"distmod\":\"rhel80\",\"distarch\":\"x86_64\",\"target_arch\":\"x86_64\"}}}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:48.871+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"CONTROL\", \"id\":51765, \"ctx\":\"initandlisten\",\"msg\":\"Operating System\",\"attr\":{\"os\":{\"name\":\"CentOS Linux release 8.0.1905 (Core) \",\"version\":\"Kernel 4.18.0-80.11.2.el8_0.x86_64\"}}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:48.871+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"CONTROL\", \"id\":21951, \"ctx\":\"initandlisten\",\"msg\":\"Options set by command line\",\"attr\":{\"options\":{\"config\":\"/etc/mongod.conf\",\"net\":{\"bindIp\":\"127.0.0.1\",\"port\":27001},\"processManagement\":{\"fork\":true,\"timeZoneInfo\":\"/usr/share/zoneinfo\"},\"replication\":{\"replSetName\":\"repl-shard1\"},\"sharding\":{\"clusterRole\":\"shardsvr\"},\"storage\":{\"dbPath\":\"/var/lib/mongo\",\"journal\":{\"enabled\":true},\"wiredTiger\":{\"engineConfig\":{\"cacheSizeGB\":0.1}}},\"systemLog\":{\"destination\":\"file\",\"logAppend\":true,\"path\":\"/var/log/mongodb/mongod.log\"}}}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:48.873+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"STORAGE\", \"id\":22270, \"ctx\":\"initandlisten\",\"msg\":\"Storage engine to use detected by data files\",\"attr\":{\"dbpath\":\"/var/lib/mongo\",\"storageEngine\":\"wiredTiger\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:48.873+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"STORAGE\", \"id\":22315, \"ctx\":\"initandlisten\",\"msg\":\"wiredtiger_open config\",\"attr\":{\"config\":\"create,cache_size=102M,session_max=33000,eviction=(threads_min=4,threads_max=4),config_base=false,statistics=(fast),log=(enabled=true,archive=true,path=journal,compressor=snappy),file_manager=(close_idle_time=100000,close_scan_interval=10,close_handle_minimum=250),statistics_log=(wait=0),verbose=[recovery_progress,checkpoint_progress,compact_progress],\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:58.877+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"CONNPOOL\", \"id\":22576, \"ctx\":\"ReplicaSetMonitor-TaskExecutor\",\"msg\":\"Connecting\",\"attr\":{\"hostAndPort\":\"server1.example.com:27001\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:58.877+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"CONNPOOL\", \"id\":22576, \"ctx\":\"ReplicaSetMonitor-TaskExecutor\",\"msg\":\"Connecting\",\"attr\":{\"hostAndPort\":\"server2.example.com:27001\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:58.877+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"CONNPOOL\", \"id\":22576, \"ctx\":\"ReplicaSetMonitor-TaskExecutor\",\"msg\":\"Connecting\",\"attr\":{\"hostAndPort\":\"server3.example.com:27001\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:58.877+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"CONNPOOL\", \"id\":22576, \"ctx\":\"ReplicaSetMonitor-TaskExecutor\",\"msg\":\"Connecting\",\"attr\":{\"hostAndPort\":\"server4.example.com:27001\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:58.877+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"CONNPOOL\", \"id\":22576, \"ctx\":\"ReplicaSetMonitor-TaskExecutor\",\"msg\":\"Connecting\",\"attr\":{\"hostAndPort\":\"server5.example.com:27001\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:58.877+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"CONNPOOL\", \"id\":22576, \"ctx\":\"ReplicaSetMonitor-TaskExecutor\",\"msg\":\"Connecting\",\"attr\":{\"hostAndPort\":\"server6.example.com:27001\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:58.877+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"NETWORK\", \"id\":23015, \"ctx\":\"listener\",\"msg\":\"Listening on\",\"attr\":{\"address\":\"/tmp/mongodb-27001.sock\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:58.877+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"NETWORK\", \"id\":23015, \"ctx\":\"listener\",\"msg\":\"Listening on\",\"attr\":{\"address\":\"127.0.0.1\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:10:58.877+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"NETWORK\", \"id\":23016, \"ctx\":\"listener\",\"msg\":\"Waiting for connections\",\"attr\":{\"port\":27001,\"ssl\":\"off\"}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:15:10.392+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"NETWORK\", \"id\":22943, \"ctx\":\"listener\",\"msg\":\"connection accepted\",\"attr\":{\"remote\":\"127.0.0.1:35724\",\"sessionId\":67,\"connectionCount\":30}}",
"{\"t\":{\"$date\":\"2020-05-19T19:15:10.393+00:00\"},\"s\":\"I\", \"c\":\"NETWORK\", \"id\":51800, \"ctx\":\"conn67\",\"msg\":\"client metadata\",\"attr\":{\"remote\":\"127.0.0.1:35724\",\"client\":\"conn67\",\"doc\":{\"application\":{\"name\":\"MongoDB Shell\"},\"driver\":{\"name\":\"MongoDB Internal Client\",\"version\":\"4.4.0\"},\"os\":{\"type\":\"Linux\",\"name\":\"CentOS Linux release 8.0.1905 (Core) \",\"architecture\":\"x86_64\",\"version\":\"Kernel 4.18.0-80.11.2.el8_0.x86_64\"}}}}"
],
"ok" : 1,
"$gleStats" : {
"lastOpTime" : Timestamp(<ts>),
"electionId" : ObjectId(<id>)
},
"lastCommittedOpTime" : Timestamp(<ts>),
"$configServerState" : {
"opTime" : {
"ts" : Timestamp(<ts>),
"t" : NumberLong(8)
}
},
"$clusterTime" : {
"clusterTime" : Timestamp(<ts>),
"signature" : {
"hash" : BinData(<bin>),
"keyId" : NumberLong(0)
}
},
"operationTime" : Timestamp(<ts>)
}

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