An entity is a resource in Logging Analytics
which is used to reference the real asset on your on-premises host or virtual host. After
you discover this entity in Logging Analytics, you can
associate it with a log source and enable log collection from it.
To create an entity, see Create an Entity to Represent Your Log-Emitting Resource. Further, Logging Analytics
enables you to edit it at a later time, move it from one compartment to another,
and perform several other management tasks as listed below.
An entity must have an entity type. Nearly 100 Oracle-defined entity
types are already available. See Entity Types Modeled in Logging Analytics. You can also create custom entity types. When an entity is
created, an entity type defines the properties which are used to locate
the log files location. For example, in an Oracle Database entity type,
you must provide path values for properties such as ADR_HOME,
ORACLE_HOME, and INSTALL_HOME. You can
create new entity types using REST API or CLI. See Logging Analytics API and
Command Line
Reference.
When you use Management Agents to continuously collect logs, you must configure a
source-entity association to enable a source for specific entities to collect
the log data. See Manage Source-Entity Association.
To perform other actions on the entity, in the Entities page,
select the compartment of your entity in the Entities Scope
section, and narrow down your search for your entity by selecting the entity type in the
Filters section. After identifying your entity, click Actions icon in the row of your entity:
View Details: The entity page is displayed. In the Entity
Information tab, you can view the entity type, its OCID,
creation type, the compartment that it resides in, the details of the management
agent, the time that it was created and last updated, and the associated
sources. Click the Edit icon next to Management Agent to update the agent
information. In the Tags tab, you can view the tags
associated with the entity. Click Add Tag button to add
one.
Further, click the Edit, Move
Resource, Add Tags, or
Delete button in the entity page to perform the
corresponding actions.
Edit: The Edit Entity dialog box is displayed.
Here, to add more properties, you can click Add button in the Properties section
and specify the Property Name and Property Value. Click Save
Changes.
These properties are used to locate the log files location. For example, in an
Oracle Database entity type, you must provide path values for
properties such as ADR_HOME, ORACLE_HOME, and
INSTALL_HOME.
Add Data: The Configure Agent-based Log Collection or Configure
log collection for OCI resources dialog box is displayed depending on
whether the entity is an OCI resource or non-OCI resource. The wizards assists
you in associating the entity with a suitable source. This sets up the parser
and filter to process the log records flowing from the entity.
Upload Files: The Upload Files wizard opens. Follow the steps in the
wizard to upload log files associated with the entity. This is particularly
useful to upload a batch of files that are not part of continuous log collection
or those that belong to a time range outside of what is defined for collection.
Copy OCID: The OCID of the entity resource is copied. You can use it to
refer to this resource anywhere in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Move Resource: The Move Resource to a Different
Compartment dialog box is displayed. From the options, select
the compartment to which you want to move the entity and click Move
Resource.
Delete: You may have to delete some of your old or unused entities to
conform to the service limits of Logging Analytics. See Limits by Service in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation. To
delete the entity, confirm in the Delete Entity dialog box.
Note
The entities that you deleted using the entity delete API may reappear
in your entity listing in any of the following circumstances:
New logs are pushed for the deleted entities through Service
Connector Hub or Object Storage collections.
New EM Bridge uploads contain the deleted entity.
Manage Entity Preferences 🔗
You can manage the default preferences for entities through
entityLifecycle preference group. Create IAM policies to allow users to
read, update, and delete entity preferences.
Entity Preferences in entityLifecycle Preference Group
Feature
Preference Name
Allowed Values
Details
Lifecycle of Agent and Host entities in Oracle Logging Analytics
AUTO_CREATE_AGENT_HOST_ENTITY
TRUE / FALSE
TRUE (Default value): The entities for Agent and Host are
created automatically.
FALSE: The entities for Agent And Host are not
created.
AUTO_DELETE_AGENT_ENTITY
TRUE / FALSE
FALSE (Default value): Agent entities are not deleted when
the Management Agents are deleted.
TRUE: Agent entities are deleted when Management Agents
are deleted.
AUTO_DELETE_HOST_ENTITY
TRUE / FALSE
FALSE (Default value): Host entities are not deleted when
the Management Agents are deleted.
TRUE: Host entities are deleted when Management Agents are
deleted.
Deletion of auto-created entities for logs received
via Service Connector Hub in Oracle Logging Analytics
AUTO_DELETE_SCH_ENTITIES_OF_TYPES
Comma Separated List of supported entity types /
_ALL_ / <empty> (no value set)
<empty> (no value set) (Default value): Entities are
not deleted.
_ALL_: Entities are deleted for all supported types when
the underlying OCI resources are deleted.
Comma separated list: Entities are deleted for the specified
entity types when the underlying OCI resources are deleted.
Custom naming for auto created Host entities in Oracle Logging Analytics
USE_CUSTOM_HOSTNAME_FROM_TAG
<tagKeyName> from Agent's free form tags
By default, Oracle Logging Analytics uses the host name as provided by the
Management Agent resource when creating the Host entity. To
override this host name, a free form tag can be set in the
Management Agent resource. The value of the tag is used to
override the name used for the Host entity. If the preference is
set and the free form tag is not set in the Management Agent
resource, then the Host entity is not created. The value of the
tag is either prefixed (default) or suffixed to the host name as
provided by the agent.
Example: If the hostname reported by
Management Agent service is myhost.example.com
and if the preference
USE_CUSTOM_HOSTNAME_FROM_TAG is set to
tagForHostNameOverride and the Management
Agent resource has a free form tag
tagForHostNameOverride set to value
-customEnvName-, then the name of the
Logging Analytics Host entity is either
-customEnvName-myhost.example.com or
myhost.example.com-customEnvName- depending
on whether Prefix or Suffix option is specified
for the USE_CUSTOM_HOSTNAME_POSITION
preference.
USE_CUSTOM_HOSTNAME_POSITION
Prefix / Suffix
See details for
USE_CUSTOM_HOSTNAME_FROM_TAG.
Entity types for AUTO_DELETE_SCH_ENTITIES_OF_TYPES
Preference