Oracle7 Server Messages

The Alert File

The Alert file is a log file that records information about internal errors and administrative activities, such as backups. When an internal error occurs, the message is sent to the terminal screen as well as written to the Alert file. Oracle also writes additional information about internal errors to the Alert file, such as the location and name of any trace files generated because of the error and so forth.

The name of the Alert file is operating system-specific. The location of the Alert file is the same as the location of the background process trace files. This location is specified by the BACKGROUND_DUMP_DEST initialization parameter. For more information, see your Oracle7 operating system-specific documentation.

If your system uses an operator's console, some messages from Oracle may appear on the console. All important messages are written to the Alert file as well as the operator's console. Because non-Oracle messages also appear on this console, the Alert file is a better record for tracing all Oracle administrative activity and errors than the console log.

The Alert file also records information about administrative activities, such as backups and archiving online redo log files. For more information about the Alert file, see the Oracle7 Server Administrator's Guide.