Reviewing Burn and Backburner Log Files

The following information and procedure applies to render nodes on a background processing network.

Review logged events in Burn and Backburner to identify the source of problems with the background processing network.

Since a background processing network may include many render nodes, a script called GATHER_BURN_LOGS is provided to collate and organize the log files from many render nodes into a single text file.

The script collects the Burn log files from the /usr/discreet/log directory, and the Backburner logs from the /usr/discreet/backburner/Network directory of each Burn node.

Use the following procedure to troubleshoot your background processing network, using the GATHER_BURN_LOGS script.

To review Burn and Backburner logs from your background processing network:

1. If necessary, create a list of render nodes from which Burn and Backburner logs should be collected.
2. On your Autodesk Visual Effects and Finishing workstation, log in to the account for your Autodesk application and open a terminal.
3. Navigate to the bin directory for your application by typing:

   cd /usr/discreet/<product_home>/bin

   where <product_home> is the directory where your application is installed (such as flame_2011).

   This directory contains scripts and binary files for the application, including those used for submitting jobs to the background processing network.

4. Run the GATHER_BURN_LOGS by typing the following:

   ./GATHER_BURN_LOGS[options]<render_node_1 render_node_2 ...>

   where:

   <render_node_1 render_node_2 ...> is the list of render nodes on your network that you created in step 1.

   [options] include the following options for this script.

   Option	Function
   -h	Shows the usage for the script.
   -v	Shows the version of the GATHER_BURN_LOGS script.
   -V	Enables additional verbosity.
   -r<version>	Retrieves logs for the specified version of Burn, such as 2012.
   -b<build>	Retrieves logs for the specified build of Burn.
   -u<filename>	Writes the collected Burn logs to a single output file, ordered by each log file's timestamp. By default, the output file is named burn.log and is created in the /bin directory of the application.
   -a<filename>	Writes the collected Backburner logs to a single output file, ordered by each log file's timestamp. By default, the output file is named backburner.log and is created in the /bin directory of the application.
   -e<filename>	Writes the events in the collected Burn logs to a single output file, ordered by each event's timestamp. By default, the output file is named burnevents.log and is created in the /bin directory of the application.
   -l<username>	Uses the specified user name to log in to the render node. If this option is omitted, you may be prompted to provide a username and password.

   The GATHER_BURN_LOGS script collects Burn and Backburner logs from each render node listed in the script and collates these logs to a single text file.

   NoteThe GATHER_BURN_LOGS script uses the rsh protocol to access Burn render nodes. To avoid being prompted for login information while running this script, create a user account on the workstation and populate the .rhosts file on each render node with the hostname of the workstation followed by the username of this account. You can then use the -l option to run the script as this user.