Post Installation Recommendations

Owned by Haim Koschitzky
Last updated: Nov 23, 2023 by XPLG Team
5 min read

This article describes recommended post installation steps that we highly recommend to perform after XPLG is installed.

Configuring XPLG to Storage

It is highly recommended to configure XPLG to work against an external storage location / directory. XPLG requires full permissions (read/write) on this location with direct/fast access.

To configure XPLG to storage:

  1. Create a folder under the name ‘XPLGConfig’.

  2. Enter XPLG Manager > Left Navigation Panel > Settings > General. 

  3. Select the Use external configuration directory checkbox and type the absolute path into XPLGConfig – “…/XPLGConfig/”
    XPLG saves the information and requests a restart.

  4. Restart XPLG, and go once again to XPLG Manager > Left Navigation Panel > Settings > General, and ensure that the configuration was saved successfully. 
    XPLG saves all the information into this external folder.
    Note: It is recommended to back it up occasionally. If you remove your XPLG version and redeploy, you can always point the new XPLG instance to this folder to use the existing configuration or for clustering purposes.
    For further information, contact the support team at support@xplg.com.

Allocating More Memory to XPLG (64-bit installations)

It is highly recommended to allocate more of memory than the default to XPLG.

To allocate more memory:

  1. Stop XPLG.

  2. Edit the file /.../XPLG_INSTALL_DIR/XpoLog.lax (Windows) OR /.../XPLG_INSTALL_DIR/XpoLog.sh.lax (Linux).

  3. Look for -Xmx1024m (default allocation is 1024 MB) and allocate more memory based on the available memory of the machine. For example, to allocate 8192 MB change the value to be -Xmx8192m or -Xmx8g and save.
    Notes:

    1. In any case we recommend maximum of 28g (28 gigabytes) allocation per XPLG instance assuming the machine hosting it has at list 56GB of memory.

    2. Total allocated memory of XPLG instance(s) per machine should not be more than 50% on Linux installations and no more than 75% on Windows installations.

  4. Start XPLG. 

Setting a default Character Encoding (Optional)

In case XPLG should be able to support special characters which are different from the machine's default (Especially Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.) it is recommended to modify the default encoding as follows.

To change default encoding:

  1. Stop XPLG.

  2. Edit the file /.../XPLG_INSTALL_DIR/XPLG.lax (Windows) OR /.../XPLG_INSTALL_DIR/XPLG.sh.lax (Linux).

  3. Edit the parameter -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 at the end of the LAX.NL.JAVA.OPTION.ADDITIONAL parameters line to any desired default encoding.
    Note: the encoding can be any of the JAVA supported encoding

  4. Start XPLG. 

Setting a default locale (Optional)

In case XPLG should be capable of displaying content in different languages and normalize dates from different regions, it is possible to assign a JVM locale. By default, the JVM locale is the locale of the platform where XPLG is installed. To override the default JVM locale, you must set the appropriate language and region (country) arguments in XPLG.

To change default locale:

  1. Stop XPLG.

  2. Edit the file /.../XPLG_INSTALL_DIR/XPLG.lax (Windows) OR /.../XPLG_INSTALL_DIR/XPLG.sh.lax (Linux).

  3. Add the parameters -Duser.language=en_US -Duser.region=en_US at the end of the LAX.NL.JAVA.OPTION.ADDITIONAL parameters line
    Note: The above example is for English US locale, the complete locale list that JAVA supports can be found here: JAVA locale list

  4. Start XPLG.

Windows Specific - Assign a service account

After installation, XPLG service is available under the Windows services panel (XpoLogCenter). It is highly recommended, after installation, to assign an account on the service for optimized connectivity between XPLG and remote log sources over the Windows network. 

To assign a service account:

  1. Go to the Windows Services Panel.

  2. Right click the XpoLogCenter service > Properties

  3. Go to the 'Log On' tab (by default, XPLG is installed with a Local System Account). Select 'This account' radio button and enter a specific account with sufficient privileges that XPLG can use to read remote log sources.

  4. Save and restart.

This will allow Administrators adding  logs over the Windows network as if they were local (direct access) using UNC paths: \\<server-name>\<drive-name>$\...\<log> (for example: \\server1\c$\logs\log4j.log{string})

Linux Specific - Allocating Allowed Open Files / Number of Processes 

It is very important to allocate 64,000 allowed open files and 20,000 allowed number of processes to XPLG that runs on Linux (default is usually 1024).
The allocation can be done specifically to the user who runs XPLG: 

To check the limitation for the user who runs XPLG:

  1. Open SSH terminal to XPLG's machine and log in using the same user that runs XPLG (for example, Putty).

  2. Run the command: 'ulimit -n' and then the command: 'ulimit -u'
    The recommended output for open files should be 64,000
    The recommended output for open processes should be 20,000

To allocate the required number of open files:

  • Log in to the machine that runs XPLG, as superuser if needed, and edit the file /etc/security/limits.conf, by adding the following line:
    [USER_THAT_RUNS_XPLG] - nofile [MAX_NUMBER_OF_FILES]
    Where
    [USER_THAT_RUNS_XPLG] is the user who you are using to run the XPLG process (superuser, if you logged in as such).
    [MAX_NUMBER_OF_FILES] is the new limitation that has to be set to 64000.
    For instance, assuming the user you are using to run the system is XPLG, you can add the line: XPLG - nofile 64000

To allocate the required number of processes:

  • Log in to the machine that runs XPLG, as superuser if needed, and edit the file /etc/security/limits.conf, by adding the following line:
    [USER_THAT_RUNS_XPLG] - nproc [MAX_NUMBER_OF_PROCESSES]
    Where
    [USER_THAT_RUNS_XPLG] is the user who you are using to run the XPLG process (superuser, if you logged in as such).
    [MAX_NUMBER_OF_PROCESSES] is the new limitation that has to be set to 20000.
    For instance, assuming the user you are using to run the system is XPLG, you can add the line: XPLG - nproc 20000

IMPORTANT: After making this change, log out and then log in again from the machine so that the changes take effect, verify by getting the correct values as a result of running 'ulimit -n' and 'ulimit -u' again using the same user which runs XPLG, and then restart XPLG.

Configure XPLG to use a Proxy

Generally, XPLG does not require internet access to function properly.
However, there are some specific features that XPLG should get an external access for some of its integrations such as Microsoft Teams, Office 365 / Azure Active Directory, Pagerduty, Slack, etc.

Some organizations do not allow direct access from XPLG servers and use a proxy server that the access can be granted only through it.
It is possible in such cases to configure XPLG to use a proxy server.

To configure XPLG to use a proxy server:

  1. Stop XPLG.

  2. Edit the file /.../XPLG_INSTALL_DIR/XpoLog.lax (Windows) OR /.../XPLG_INSTALL_DIR/XpoLog.sh.lax (Linux).

  3. Look for the JAVA parameters line (starts with lax.nl.java.option.additional), add at the end the following 3 parameters with the proxy details:
    -Dhttps.proxyHost=THE_PROXY_HOST
    -Dhttps.proxyPort=THE_PROXY_PORT
    -DproxySet=true

  4. Start XPLG.