Network Deployment (Distributed operating systems), v8.0 > Troubleshoot and support > Diagnosing problems with message logs
View the service log
Service logs are logs written in a binary format. We cannot view a service log directly using a text editor. You should never directly edit the service log, as doing so will corrupt the log.
To move a service log from one machine to another, use a mechanism like FTP, which supports binary file transfer. Use the Showlog tool to convert the contents of the service log to a text format that you can then write to a file or dump to the command shell window. Run the showlog script to view the contents of the service log as described in the following procedure.
Procedure
- Open a shell window on the machine where the service log resides.
- Change the directory to WAS_HOME/bin where WAS_HOME is the fully qualified path where the WAS product is installed.
- Run the showlog script.
(Windows) showlog.bat
(Solaris) (AIX) 
showlog.sh
- Run the following showlog script with no parameters to display usage instructions.
(Windows) showlog.bat
(Solaris) (AIX) showlog.sh
- Display the service log contents to the shell window.
showlog service_log_filename
If the service log is not in the default location, fully qualify the service_log_filename
- Format and write the service log contents to a file.
showlog service_log_filename output_filename
If the service log is not in the default location, fully qualify the service_log_filename