Question

Exchange 2003 generating excessive log files

Asked by: Ian_v

We are running Exchange 2003 (Service pack 2) under Windows 2000 Server Standard Edition Service Pack 4.
We have developed a fault condition with Exchange that gradually consumes the hard disc drive space by creating excessive 5120Kb log files (E000XXXX.log). These files are created every few minutes until the server is restarted. The entire mdbdata directrory size is now 78.4Gb. The oldest stored log files are dated back to November last year.
Is there any harm in deleting any of these log files? Would this symptom indicate information store corruption?

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-02-01 at 18:00:48ID24103588
Tags

Exchange 2003 log file creation

,

Actuate

Topics

SQL Reporting

,

Microsoft Operating Systems

,

Server Applications

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
5

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Excessive Collisions?
    Whenever I copy files between computers on my home network I seem to be receiving a possibly excessive number of collisions. For example, I just copied files between our Windows 98 computer and a Linux box, and in one minute there were approximately 3125 collisions. This is...
  2. Excessive outgoing DNS requests
    We are running a W2K Domain in our office. We have been gettting excessive traffic coming in from a range of Earthlink DNS servers, eating up some of our bandwidth. After working with an Earthlink engineer, we discovered (to my surprise, of course) that the cause of the tra...
  3. excessive transmission
    hello i have a laptop, the user who had it was unable to send mail. ive noticed in network status a very very excessive send of info. System hangs whenever a internet signal was available. it was sending millions of tons and more. so i updated and ran hijackthis, adaware,...
  4. I believe I am generating an excessive amount and size of lo…
    I recently created an email server using Exchange server 2003 on a WIndows server 2003 platform. I has been operational about a month and operating fine. My MDBDATA folder is now over 4 GB which seems excessive. When doing some research, It seems that I have a number of log ...
  5. Stop exchange 07 eating excessive RAM
    Hi, I know exchange uses excessive RAM and i supposed to release it when another application needs it. However is there anyway to limit the actual amount of RAM the store.exe process uses? Thanks

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: pistolslapperPosted on 2009-02-01 at 18:14:10ID: 23524049

Sometimes excessive logs may point to your server being configured as an open relay or maybe one of your client pc's is spamming and is transmitting lots and lots of mail. This is something to check.

If you do a full backup of your exchange database i think (not 100% sure) it will delete the logs for you. Either way it will give you piece of mind :)

 

by: nttranbaoPosted on 2009-02-01 at 20:10:50ID: 23524306

These logs are automatically created by Exchange for all the email transactions. When Exchange receives/sends an email, it will not update directly into its database file (.edb), but rather create multiple E00xxxx.log files. These files will be automatically DELETED only after a full backup of Exchange Server using NTBACKUP.EXE.

Therefore, you should schedule a weekly/daily backup of your Exchange ( Information Storage). If the backup task goes well, then these LOG files should be disappear.

NOTE: Do not manually delete these LOG files, as it can cause Exchange to stop working.

 

by: MesthaPosted on 2009-02-02 at 00:32:29ID: 23525107

If the logs date back to November then your backups have been failing. Do you backup Exchange? If not then you need to. Run a backup using ntbackup and that will flush the logs out for you. As already advised, do not delete the logs manually as that will upset Exchange.

If you are backing up Exchange then check the backup application is working correctly, and also check inside Exchange on the properties of the Mailbox database to see what time it was last backed up. If it was recently (some when last week for example) then something could be stopping the logs from flushing correctly.

High transaction log growth can be normal in some circumstances, it depends on what your message flow is like. You haven't said how many users you have etc, but if you had 500 then it would be normal, if you had 5 then it would not.

You are further complicated by being on Windows 2000. While Exchange can defend itself against some types of attack, this does need some options of the SMTP engine that hosts it. Windows 2000 does not have those options.

-M

 

by: Ian_vPosted on 2009-02-02 at 20:37:29ID: 31541589

We do have a problem with some form of  spamming which we have been trying to track down for some time.  Using NTbackup did not remove the log files so I deleted them by hand.  A second NTbackup the next day did delete log files so we will be able to manage the problem while we try to fix its source - or wait until we install Win 2008 & Exchange 2007 scheduled shortly.  Thank you all very much

 

by: nttranbaoPosted on 2009-02-02 at 22:37:26ID: 23534541

Thank you for your feedback.

FYI: Regarding spams, my company stays with Exchange 2003 with RedCondor, the AntiSpam/AntiVirus service, and pleased with its performance. So if you only want to fight spam, consider using Antispam service rather than upgrading to Exchange 2007.

Cheers,

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...