Locating the database server's message log

The database server's message log is a record of all messages recorded by the database server. This is the first place to look if you have server problems, and a good place to check regularly.

This log will have messages in it that look something like the following:

2013-01-29 23:15:41 CET LOG:  database system was not properly shut down; automatic recovery in progress
2013-01-29 23:15:41 CET LOG:  record with zero length at A/A3478F08
2013-01-29 23:15:41 CET LOG:  redo is not required
2013-01-29 23:15:42 CET LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections
2013-01-29 23:15:42 CET LOG:  autovacuum launcher started

We'll explain some more about these logs once we've located the files.

Getting ready

You'll need to get operating system access to the database system, which is what we call the platform on which the database runs.

How to do it…

The server log can be in a few different places, so first let's list all of those so that we can locate the log...