Capturing system error messages

• US 20040078695A1
• Filed: 02/12/2003
• Published: 04/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/14/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Fortuna, Zenon, Bowers, Wayne J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,124,328 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/39
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0781 Error filtering or prioritizing based on a policy defined by the user or on a policy defined by a hardware/software module, e.g. according to a severity level

Abstract

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for capturing system error messages. The method includes accessing information associated with an error. The method further includes identifying a category associated with the error based upon the accessed information and accessing at least one pre-determined attribute in the accessed information based upon the identified category.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

accessing information associated with an error;

identifying a category associated with the error based upon the accessed information; and

accessing at least one pre-determined attribute in the accessed information based upon the identified category.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing the information comprises accessing the information in response to detecting a triggering event.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein detecting the triggering event comprises detecting an event message provided by a system in which the error occurred.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein detecting the triggering event comprises detecting a sequence of at least one non-event message provided by the system in which the error occurred.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein accessing the information comprises waking a sleeping process, in response to detecting the triggering event, to access the information associated with the error.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein accessing the information comprises scanning the system for the information associated with the error.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the category associated with the error comprises comparing at least a portion of the accessed information associated with the error to at least one event category defined in a table.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein comparing the portion of the accessed information associated with the error to the at least one event category in the table comprises comparing the portion of the accessed information associated with the error to at least one of an operating system error, a software application error, a peripheral device error, a networking error, and a system hardware error.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing the at least one pre-determined attribute in the accessed information comprises extracting a selected portion of the accessed information.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein accessing the at least one pre-determined attribute comprises forming an error attribute string from the selected portion of the accessed information.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein forming the error attribute string comprises forming the error attribute string using Extensible Markup Language (XML).

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising generating a report from the at least one error attribute string and at least one of a time stamp, an identification number, and a system identifier.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising transmitting the report to a second system.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein transmitting the report comprises at least one of sending an email message to the second system over a network and transmitting the report to the second system over the network.

15. A method, comprising:

detecting a triggering event associated with an error occurring in at least one capture monitored system;

accessing information associated with the error in response to detecting the triggering event;

identifying a category associated with the error based on the accessed information; and

generating a report from the accessed information based upon the identified category.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein detecting the triggering event comprises detecting at least one of an event message and a sequence of non-event messages.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein identifying the category associated with the error comprises identifying the category associated with the error by applying a JAVA category definition stored in a table to the accessed information.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein generating the report comprises combining at least one of an identification number, a date, an event category, and an error attribute string.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising providing a report to the repository system.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein providing the report to the repository system comprises transmitting the report from the monitor system to the repository system over a network.

21. An article comprising one or more machine-readable storage media containing instructions that when executed enable a processor to:

detect an error in at least one capture monitored system;

identify a category associated with the error;

access at least one error attribute associated with the identified category; and

generate a report including at least one error attribute.

22. The article of claim 21, wherein the instructions when executed enable the processor to detect a triggering event occurring in the capture monitored system in response to detecting the error.

23. The article of claim 21, wherein the instructions when executed enable the processor to access the error attribute by applying at least one function to the accessed information, wherein the function is a shell script stored in a table.

24. The article of claim 21, wherein the instructions when executed enable the processor to transmit the report to a repository system.

25. The article of claim 24, wherein the instructions when executed enable the processor to transmit the report over a network to the repository system.

26. An apparatus, comprising:

a bus; and

a processor coupled to the bus, wherein the processor is adapted to detect a triggering event associated with an error, to wake a sleeping process to access information associated with the error in response to detecting the triggering event, to categorize the error based on the accessed information, and to access selected information from the accessed information based on the category of the error.

27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the processor is adapted to detect the triggering event by detecting at least one of an event message and a sequence of at least one non-event message.

28. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the processor is adapted to categorize the error as at least one of an operating system error, a software application error, a peripheral device error, a networking error, and a system hardware error.

29. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the processor is adapted to generate a report based on the selected information.

30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the processor is adapted to generate the report using the information associated with the error including at least one of a time stamp, an identification number, and a system identifier.

31. The apparatus of claim 26, further comprising a storage device coupled to the bus, wherein the storage device is adapted to store the report generated by the processor.

32. The apparatus of claim 26, further comprising an interface coupled to the bus and coupled to a network, wherein the interface is adapted to transmit the report to the network.