Oracle log file maintenance

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Though I have been an Oracle DBA for about a decade, I have only recently started taking on responsibility for some of the other tiers that are part of Oracle Applications, Portal, Enterprise Manager and Oracle Management Server. I am a part of a small team that has not had much training other than on the job experience in these areas. We are managing pretty well, but are still trying to find easier and better ways to manage things.

The latest issue was discovered by one of our team as they were doing some preventative system checks. They noticed some largish log files and added them to the archive and clean script. These new files bring to 4 the number in this particular system and as we were discussing it, we wondered several things.

The current list


$ORACLE_HOME/mid/webcache/logs/access_log
$ORACLE_HOME/mid/j2ee/OC4J_Portal/log/OC4J_Portal_default_island_1/default-web-access.log
$ORACLE_HOME/infra/j2ee/OC4J_SECURITY/log/OC4J_SECURITY_default_island_1/default-web-access.log
$ORACLE_HOME/infra/oc4j/j2ee/OC4J_DBConsole_stingray.circlek.com_icprod/log/http-web-access.log

We are using a rudimentary script that makes a copy of the archive, a copy of the current log and then empties the current log. This process gives us 2-3 weeks of history and is self-maintaining (what every DBA should strive for).

There are about a million log files in this rats nest of directories, but they all seem to be pretty small and slow growing. Are there other log files that should be maintained regularly?

An Ounce of Prevention


Besides ongoing maintenance, what can a self-respecting DBA do to reduce unnecessary logging? I do not know of a list of what can be turned off or reduced.

I am counting on my Oracle friends, both here in the blogsphere as well as in Twitlandia to help me flesh out this list so we can all can have a master list of log files to include in maintenance scripts. Your comments here are greatly appreciated.

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