Lesson 4	Finding the alert log
Objective	Locate the text file containing the alert log for your database.

Finding Oracle alert log

Oracle writes the alert log in the directory pointed to by the

background_dump_dest initialization parameter. On UNIX systems and Windows NT systems running Oracle 8.1 or later, that directory is under the admin directory tree. The following is a typical path to the alert log on a UNIX system:

$ORACLE_BASE/admin/sid_name/bdump

Replace sid_name with the name of the Oracle instance. If you are running on NT and running Oracle 8.0 or prior, the default convention is different, and you will probably find your alert log in this directory:

C:\ORANT\rdbms80\trace

To find out with certainty which directory to look in, connect using Server Manager and issue a SHOW PARAMETER background_dump_dest command. Here's an example:

SVRMGR> show parameter background_dump_dest

NAME                 TYPE    VALUE

-------------------- ------- ------------------------------

background_dump_dest string  E:\Oracle\admin\jonathan\bdump

The alert log filename always includes the SID name, and takes the following form:

sid_nameALRT.LOG

The alert log for the COIN database, for example, will be in the file named COINALRT.LOG.
In the next lesson, you will identify the different types of content in the alert log.