SharePoint provides diagnostic logging out of the box. We can configure it from ‘Monitoring’ section in Central Administration. Select ‘Configure diagnostic logging’ option.
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This will open up the Diagnostic Logging configuration page. Here, we can define the severity of events, which has to be captured in the logs. As the severity of the event decreases the event count that has been logged increases exponentially causing an event log flooding in the log file.
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We can enable Event Log Flood Protection to suppress the events, which are repeatedly captured in the event log. In case of event log flooding, the event will be suppressed and only a count of the occurrence will be shown in the log file to prevent flooding. We can also specify the location of the log file. By default, it is set to ‘LOGS’ folder in the 16 Hive path in SharePoint Server 2016.
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Going to 16 hive log location, we can see real time logs being written. These log files provide immense support to isolate and debug the issues within the farm.
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It is always a good idea to have a ULS log viewer to open the ULS log file as opening it up in Notepad and finding the error events can be a daunting task at times. You can download the ULS Log Viewer from Microsoft from here. Though it was intended for SharePoint 2013, it works with SharePoint 2016 as well.
Summary - Thus, we have seen how to set up and use the diagnostic logging feature of SharePoint Server 2016.