Change the log level for Puppet services in Puppet 4.0 and later 📍

You might need to increase the log level from info (the default) to debug to gather additional information when troubleshooting a problem with Puppet services. For example, increasing the log level for puppetserver is helpful for troubleshooting.

Version and installation information

Puppet version: 4.0 to latest
OS: Any
Installation type: Any

Solution

Change the log level by editing the service’s logback.xml root-level setting and restarting the service. You can do this manually, or you can install a module that uses a task to complete the steps.

Note: debug-level logs fill up disk space quickly. When you finish gathering information, change the log level back to info. Before you send debug-level logs to anyone, review them for sensitive information, such as hostnames and IP addresses.

Set the log level manually

The following command uses puppet apply with an Augeas resource to edit the service’s logback.xml root-level setting and restart the service.

Set the value for FACTER_level to: debug to increase the log level, or info to decrease the log level to the default level. Set the value for FACTER_service to the affected service: puppetserver or puppetdb

FACTER_level="<DEBUG OR INFO>" FACTER_service="<SERVICE NAME>" puppet apply -e "augeas {'toggle logging level': incl => \"/etc/puppetlabs/$::service/logback.xml\", lens => 'Xml.lns', context => \"/files/etc/puppetlabs/$::service/logback.xml/configuration/root/#attribute\", changes => \"set level \'$::level\'\"}~> service {\"$::service\": ensure => running }"

Examples

Set puppetdb to debug-level logging:

# FACTER_level="debug" FACTER_service="puppetdb" puppet apply -e "augeas {'toggle logging level': incl => \"/etc/puppetlabs/$::service/logback.xml\", lens => 'Xml.lns', context => \"/files/etc/puppetlabs/$::service/logback.xml/configuration/root/#attribute\", changes => \"set level \'$::level\'\"}~> service {\"$::service\": ensure => running }"

Output:

Notice: Compiled catalog for osp-puppetdb.platform9.puppet.net in environment production in 0.23 seconds
Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/Augeas[toggle logging level]/returns: executed successfully
Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/Service[puppetdb]/ensure: ensure changed 'stopped' to 'running'
Notice: Finished catalog run in 0.27 seconds

Set puppetdb to info-level logging:

# FACTER_level="info" FACTER_service="puppetdb" puppet apply -e "augeas {'toggle logging level': incl => \"/etc/puppetlabs/$::service/logback.xml\", lens => 'Xml.lns', context => \"/files/etc/puppetlabs/$::service/logback.xml/configuration/root/#attribute\", changes => \"set level \'$::level\'\"}~> service {\"$::service\": ensure => running }"

Output:

Notice: Compiled catalog for osp-puppetdb.platform9.puppet.net in environment production in 0.19 seconds
Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/Augeas[toggle logging level]/returns: executed successfully
Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/Service[puppetdb]: Triggered 'refresh' from 1 events
Notice: Finished catalog run in 0.50 seconds

Set the log level via a task with Bolt

Before you begin: You must install the puppetlabs-support_tasks module and Bolt on a workstation to run the task.

Note: This task restarts the target Puppet service. This restart will cause connection error(s) for any agent requests which happen during the restart. You can safely ignore these error(s) while the task runs in the background. This task assumes that the puppetserver and puppetdb services are installed on the same node. This task doesn’t support configurations where infrastructure services are on different nodes.

Run the task using Bolt and SSH

Run the task against the target infrastructure node. Change the value for loglevel to debug to increase the log level, or info to decrease the log level to the default level and change the value for service to the affected service: puppetserver or puppetdb

bolt task run support_tasks::st0009_change_pe_service_loglevel loglevel="<DEBUG OR INFO>" service="<SERVICE NAME>" -n $(puppet config print certname) --modulepath="/etc/puppetlabs/code/environments/production/modules"

Example To set the debug level for the puppetserver service, on the primary server run the following:

bolt task run support_tasks::st0009_change_pe_service_loglevel loglevel="debug" service="puppetserver" -t <TARGET NAME> --modulepath="/etc/puppet/modules"

Output:

Started on 192.168.0.20...
Finished on 192.168.0.20:
  Found Opensource
  Updating 'puppetserver' log level to 'debug'
  Notice: Compiled catalog for osp-server.platform9.puppet.net in environment production in 0.32 seconds
  Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/Augeas[toggle logging level]/returns: executed successfully
  Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/Service[puppetserver]/ensure: ensure changed 'stopped' to 'running'
  Notice: Applied catalog in 27.94 seconds
   -- ST#0009 Task ended   1579906511 --
  {
  }

Successful on 1 target: 192.168.0.20
Ran on 1 target in 34.49 sec

Learn more about:

• Installing modules using a Puppetfile
• Running tasks with Bolt
• The support_tasks module