Recommended Settings for Tracing and Message Logging

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This topic describes recommended tracing and message logging settings for different operating environments.

For a production environment, if you are using WCF trace sources, set the switchValue to Warning. If you are using the WCF System.ServiceModel trace source, set the switchValue attribute to Warning and the propagateActivity attribute to true. If you are using a user-defined trace source, set the switchValue attribute to Warning, ActivityTracing. This can be done manually using the Configuration Editor Tool (SvcConfigEditor.exe). If you do not anticipate a hit in performance, you can set the switchValue attribute to Information in all the previously mentioned cases, which generates a fairly large amount of trace data. The following example demonstrates these recommended settings.

<configuration>
 <system.diagnostics>
  <sources>
    <source name="System.ServiceModel"
            switchValue="Warning"
            propagateActivity="true" >
      <listeners>
        <add name="xml"/>
      </listeners>
    </source>
    <source name="myUserTraceSource"
            switchValue="Warning, ActivityTracing">
      <listeners>
        <add name="xml"/>
      </listeners>
    </source>
  </sources>
  <sharedListeners>
    <add name="xml"
         type="System.Diagnostics.XmlWriterTraceListener"
               initializeData="C:\logs\Traces.svclog" />
  </sharedListeners>
 </system.diagnostics>

<system.serviceModel>
  <diagnostics wmiProviderEnabled="true">
  </diagnostics>
 </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

For deployment or debugging environment, choose Information or Verbose, along with ActivityTracing for either a user-defined or System.ServiceModel trace source. To enhance debugging, you should also add an additional trace source (System.ServiceModel.MessageLogging) to the configuration to enable message logging. Notice that the switchValue attribute has no impact on this trace source.

The following example demonstrates the recommended settings, using a shared listener that utilizes the XmlWriterTraceListener.

<configuration>
 <system.diagnostics>
  <sources>
    <source name="System.ServiceModel"
            switchValue="Information, ActivityTracing"
            propagateActivity="true" >
      <listeners>
        <add name="xml"/>
      </listeners>
    </source>
    <source name="System.ServiceModel.MessageLogging">
      <listeners>
        <add name="xml"/>
      </listeners>
    </source>
    <source name="myUserTraceSource"
            switchValue="Information, ActivityTracing">
      <listeners>
        <add name="xml"/>
      </listeners>
    </source>
  </sources>
  <sharedListeners>
    <add name="xml"
         type="System.Diagnostics.XmlWriterTraceListener"
               initializeData="C:\logs\Traces.svclog" />
  </sharedListeners>
 </system.diagnostics>

 <system.serviceModel>
  <diagnostics wmiProviderEnabled="true">
      <messageLogging 
           logEntireMessage="true" 
           logMalformedMessages="true"
           logMessagesAtServiceLevel="true" 
           logMessagesAtTransportLevel="true"
           maxMessagesToLog="3000" 
       />
  </diagnostics>
 </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

Using WMI to Modify Settings

You can use WMI to change configuration settings at runtime (by enabling the wmiProviderEnabled attribute in the configuration, as demonstrated in the previously configuration example). For example, you can use WMI within the CIM Studio to change the trace source levels from Warning to Information at runtime. You should be aware that the performance cost of live debugging in this way can be very high. For more information about using WMI, see the Using Windows Management Instrumentation for Diagnostics topic.

Enable Correlated Events in ASP.NET Tracing

ASP.NET events do not set the correlation ID (ActivityID) unless ASP.NET event tracing is turned on. To see correlated events properly, you have to turn on ASP.NET events tracing using the following command in the command console, which can be invoked by going to Start, Run and type cmd,

logman start mytrace -pf logman.providers -o test.etl –ets

To turn off tracing of ASP.NET events, use the following command,

logman stop mytrace -ets

See Also

Concepts

Using Windows Management Instrumentation for Diagnostics

Build Date: 2012-01-31