Logging Tab: Customer Managed

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Applies to 2026.7 and newer

On customer-managed instances, the Logging tab in Admin Settings lets you download a selection of application logs from the Alation server.

By default, downloaded logs are unencrypted. Server Admins on customer-managed instances already have direct access to log files at /opt/alation/site/logs, so encrypting the download usually does not change access to logs that are already available on the server. The unencrypted format is also easier to share directly with Alation Support because it does not require a separate decryption step.

Note

Logs may contain user information, including personally identifiable information (PII) and sensitive data. Review your organization’s policies before sharing logs with external parties, including Alation Support.

Download Logs

To prepare and download logs:

  1. Go to Admin Settings > Logging.

    ../../../_images/Logging_01.png

  2. In the date picker, select the time period for the logs you want to download. The Log Files table updates to show logs found in /opt/alation/site/logs for the selected time period.

  3. Select the checkboxes of the logs you want to include. The total size of your selection appears in the Estimated Size field above the table.

  4. Click Prepare to collect and package the selected logs.

  5. Click Download to save the logs package to your machine.

The downloaded file is a .tar.gz archive that you can extract directly. Share the file with Alation Support if requested.

Enable Encryption for Log Downloads

If your organization requires encrypted log downloads, you can enable encryption by setting the alation.feature_flags.DEV_enable_encrypted_log_on_prem_download flag in alation_conf. When enabled, downloaded logs are packaged as an encrypted bundle that requires a decryption key.

Note

This flag controls encryption for both server log downloads and connector log downloads on customer-managed instances.

To enable encryption:

  1. Set the flag to True. For instructions on using alation_conf, see Use alation_conf.

    alation_conf alation.feature_flags.DEV_enable_encrypted_log_on_prem_download -s True

  2. Restart the uWSGI and Celery services for the change to take effect. For details, see Alation Actions.

    alation_supervisor restart web:uwsgi
alation_supervisor restart celery:*

After encryption is enabled, downloaded logs are packaged in a .payload.tar file that contains the encrypted log archive and a key file. Contact Alation Support for assistance with decryption.