Enabling circular logging during working hours?

No, once you enable circular loggin you will have to manually remove the logs.
The best thing you can do is do a FULL backup of the information store, this will flush all the logs.

that's the actual problem - I cant do the backup now (no space)
my question is: is there any downtime or I can safely do this within the working hours?
Then, after the logging is enabled how will I know these have been written into the database so I can safely remove them?

You will have to restart the information store after enabling circullar logging and that the only downtime.

Then do the backup from a different server.

Hi,

• Enable Circular Logging
• Restart Services
• Exchange will take care of Log File refresh on its own

Cheers
Nitin

jut to confirm what Narayan_singh is saying all you need to do is restart the information store

@demazter: I use online backups and don't have this much space it's not an option. I will have the space back once I get rid of the logs
@gunpit: when you say "Exchange will take care of the logs", do you mean it will flush the old logs itself? Just trying to match it with previous answer that I need to manually go and remove it
If so, I am repeating the question: how will I know Exchange has finished writing my 20Gb of logs into the database, so I can go and manually delete them?
Plus I will need to know if I can delete ALL of them or leave the recent 5 (I read in M$ article it circulates among 5 log files only)
thanks guys and sorry for all these questions but there's no messing with the exchange..

Hi,
Yes it does. If you are really concerned, run a Full Backup using a Exchange Aware Backup SW and it will flush out all Logs. Then enable Cicular Logging
Cheers
Nitin

No you do not touch any Logs yourself !!!

As far as I was aware if you enable circular logging the log files will remain until you run a full backup!

Though you did mention - I still ask - Why? Reason? Well we might provide you a more logical alternative (if possible)

DO NOT MANUALLY DELETE ANY LOG FILES!

Well Logs will clear automatically :-) ! A good read: http://www.msexchange.org/articles/Exchange-log-disk-full.html

I bow down to your superior knowledge ;-)
Still I don't enable circular logging very often except when I am migrating mailboxes.

I would much rather have proper backups.

Hey Glen - We all are the same :-) !!
As far as CL is concerned - It is a strict NO for all my customers !!

let me try it this evening and will let you know how I got on

@ Septembah - No Worries...:-) !!
@ Narayan - Thanks for summarizing what we discussed !

since you just want to get rid of the logs ....dismounting database and then running eseutil /mh ".edb path" (just to be on safe side) if clean shutdown deleting all logfiles will be good option for long run do not enable logging.

right - Before: I have three mailbox storages.
All three have separate folders for the logs. I had to remove half of the logs (20Gb) from the third folder (no space).
After:
I enabled the circular logging and restarted the Exchange services. All folders have been cleared and have only few MB each.
Now, I still have the original (20Gb) bunch of logs I had to move elsewhere earlier on. How can I "write them" back into the database?
I am thinking now of disabling the circular logging, copying these logs back into original logs folder, enabling the circular logging again, so they get flushed properly. Does this make sense?

Septembah - I am not sure of your objectives here....! Is this some sort of a lab, where you are just testing things !
Why did u move Logs in the first place? Now there will be inconsistencies if u copy back those half logs. Ignore and disable CL, you should be fine.
THanks
Nitin

Obviously restarting services is one of them !

it's not testing I'm afraid...
The reason (I'm writing this fourth time), was the lack of space, I don't touch the logs unless things hit the fan. Been away for three weeks, someone's left, something broke, etc. the usual murphy's law hit in.


Anyways, I just made the backup of the full database. The half logs I copied back were not flushed and will probably not get flushed ever because the original references are gone - I suppose I can delete them manually now?

just in case you think the question's abandoned - I will try the above tonight
had 24/7 uptime requirement lately and couldn't dismount the stores the check
cheers

Cheers !

hi,
I figured instead of me coming back here every second day with "can't dismount the store now, will try later" I'll just wait until I can actually go ahead and do it - done so only recently.
I eventually managed to perform an old school tape backup which did not flush the old logs either (full exchange backup) so in the end removed the old logs manually (since there were both old and the new ones mixed up together in the same MD folder I used Total Commander compare directories tool).
Re the split points, it's difficult to say who should get it - think the closest to my case were the Narayan's and demazter's answers so to be fair I'll go 50/50.
Many thanks to everyone involved though!