Search Server Troubleshooting

Products

CA Service Management - Service Desk Manager CA Service Desk Manager CA Service Catalog

Issue/Introduction

Search Server, or Elastic Search is a component that is leveraged by xFlow and Service Point to access content from Service Desk and Service Catalog. The following is a guide to how the Search Server component operates and what to look for in troubleshooting.

This article will be of value when troubleshooting scenarios such as missing Service Desk ticket content in Service Point as well as missing Catalog offering data in Service Point.

Environment

Release : 17.3

Component : SDM - xFlow

Resolution

Prior to SM 17.3 RU6, the file is located in C:\Program Files\CA\SC\CASearchServer\elasticsearch-2.1.1\logs

To set the logging into debug mode, modify the line "es.logger.level: INFO" to "es.logger.level: DEBUG" in elastic search server install\elasticsearch-2.1.1\config\logging.yml file and recycle Search Service
From SM 17.3 RU6 onward, the file is located in C:\Program Files\CA\SC\CASearchServer\elasticsearch-7.10.2\logs

To activate debugging, locate file "log4j2.properties" in C:\Program Files\CA\SC\CASearchServer\elasticsearch-7.10.2\config. Backup, then edit the file in a text editor and locate this line:
```
rootLogger.level = info
```
Change the line to read as:
```
rootLogger.level = DEBUG
```
Save the "log4j2.properties" file, then recycle Search Service

When performing an initial load (pdm_es_initial_load.bat) or a subsequent index rebuild (pdm_es_rebuild_index.bat), file initial_load.log will be of value. This log file can be located in the C:\Program Files\CA\SC\CASearchServer\search\logs directory.

Service Desk/Search Server Interaction

Within SDM, under pdm_status, there will be an entry for "es_ebl" or the "Search Deamon" process. For conventional configurations, this process is located on the Primary SDM Server. For Advance Availability, the process is on both the Background and the App server running xFlow. Note that there is a known cosmetic spelling error for "Deamon". The "es_ebl" process will connect to Search Server to pass on content from SDM.

How this works is when an entry in SDM is recorded that needs to be passed on to Search Server, the "es_ebl" process will write an entry to the backend database table "es_events", then a "Push" is done to write the content over to the appropriate index in Search Server. Once the push to Search Server is completed, the corresponding entry in the database table "es_events" is deleted. Normally, the "es_events" table is empty, unless there is data to be pushed over to ElasticSearch. Once it is pushed to SS, the "es_events" table entries is deleted.

Log file of interest is the esEvents.log in the SDM log directory. One should examine this log for troubleshooting concerns involving ticket data from SDM to be transferred across to Search Server. To turn up the logging, one must update the esLog4j.properties file in NX_ROOT\site\cfg to debug levels, then run "pdm_bounce es_ebl" to restart the SDM "Search Deamon" process.

Service Catalog/Search Server Interaction

Within Catalog, the interaction is simpler. Catalog will make a direct connection to the Search Server to push its contents over to the appropriate index stored in Search Server.

Log file of interest is the Catalog view.log. One should examine this log for troubleshooting concerns involving request data and offering data from Catalog to be transferred across to Search Server. There will be entries for the Search Server interactions if one searches for "ESClient". View.log would need to have debugging enabled to view the content.

xFlow and Service Point/Search Server Interaction

xFlow and Service Point will utilise the Search Microservice defined in xFlow to interface and obtain materials from Search Server. One may consider turning up logging on the Search Microservice to view the content and materials that xFlow and Service Point obtains for a given transaction between its Search Microservice and the Search Server. Logs of interest will be the searchMS_debug.log and its derivative logs in the xFlow install directory.

Direct Search Server examination

The most common method to view the contents of Search Server's indexes is to utilise the Chrome plugin "ElasticSearch Head". A common activity is to use this functionalty to directly examine a given index stored in Search Server to determine its contents and accuracy when SDM or Catalog writes to the indexes and xFlow or Service Point reads from the indexes.

Information on the plugin is available here:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/elasticsearch-head/ffmkiejjmecolpfloofpjologoblkegm?hl=en-US

Once the plugin has been installed on your Chrome browser instance, you can access from this location: