openhab-docs/tutorials/beginner/logs.md

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layout: tutorial-beginner
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# Looking to the logs

While using openHAB, you may need to look at the logs generated by the software to see if there are any issues that need your attention.

Two log files are going to interest us which are openhab.log and events.log 
The events.log file contains what is happening on the Openhab event bus like sensors changing states, very handy for writting rules as you can see things changing in realtime. 
The other file openhab.log shows the output of all bindings and addons and allows you to fault find issues with a binding. 
Before asking for help on the forum, it is worth checking openhab.log for clues as to what is causing any issues as this will result in getting help much faster.

To watch the logs in realtime with a openhabian based setup use the below linux command which can be done via SSH with a program called putty from a windows or mac machine. 
CTRL+C will close the stream. 
You can also use SAMBA/network shares to open or copy the file directly.

```text
tail -f /var/log/openhab2/openhab.log -f /var/log/openhab2/events.log
```

Bindings can have the level of detail increased or decreased on a per binding basis and this is done with the Karaf console. 

To find them if you are not using Openhabian:

- open the finder,
- navigate to your home folder,
- navigate inside the openHAB folder,
- navigate inside the userdata folder,
- navigate inside the logs folder

<!-- ![](images/log-folders.png) -->

- Inside the logs folder, double-click on the `openhab.log` file. The file will be displayed inside the console application.

<!-- ![](images/log-screen.png) -->

The console will display the messages as soon as they will be logged.
Keep this window somewhere in order to take a look inside when it is needed.
We will use it to check the Z-Wave dialogs.

A "clean" startup looks this way in the log file :

```java
2016-05-09 21:29:33.195 [INFO ] [arthome.ui.paper.internal.PaperUIApp] - Started Paper UI at /ui
2016-05-09 21:29:33.252 [INFO ] [.dashboard.internal.DashboardService] - Started dashboard at /start
2016-05-09 21:29:33.567 [INFO ] [ing.zwave.handler.ZWaveSerialHandler] - Serial port is initialized
```