Frequently Asked Questions - Support

This FAQ answers nitty-gritty questions that have been asked by Gibraltar users.

  1. Does Gibraltar support 64-bit applications?
  2. Does data from my applications stay in the Hub or once I connect is it all streamed down to Analyst then deleted off of the Hub?
  3. How can I see the size of the data pulled down to my desktop?
  4. After sending an email of a session, how do I delete all previous sessions?
  5. I have a process that runs continuously but is idle 99% of the time. The logs seem larger than I’d expect. Can this be reduced?
  6. Can Gibraltar be configured to only access the internet when the user hits the hot-key to send log files?
  7. Is the Gibraltar Agent active after closing the app?

Have more questions?  Please contact us or have a live chat with one of our developers so we can make sure all your questions are answered.

Other FAQs

The Licensing FAQ and Subscriptions FAQ explain how we've made Gibraltar easy to buy and own.

The Try It FAQ focuses on general questions asked by people considering a Gibraltar trial.

Does Gibraltar support 64-bit applications?

Gibraltar is fully supported on 64 bit. It's a core part of our testing and in fact half of our development team runs 64 bit (a mix of vista and Windows 7). The Agent is compiled to work as either 64 bit or 32 bit depending on the hosting process so there is just one Agent file. This is also true of all of the other redistributable parts. The Analyst is compiled to run as 32 bit, so it will run under WoW64 on a 64 bit system. The Hub runs as either 64 bit or 32 bit depending on the operating system and ASP.NET configuration.

Does data from my applications stay in the Hub or once I connect is it all streamed down to Analyst then deleted off of the Hub?

Yes, the basic idea is for Hub to hold logs temporarily until they have been downloaded to all subscribed Gibraltar Analyst computers -- and Hub is pretty smart about this. For example, it keeps a few days of data around so that it’s available for the scenario of connecting a new copy of Analyst to troubleshoot a recent problem.

By default, Hub is configured to store up to 2 GB of data for each account with each log retained for up to 28 days (and at least 4 days). If you choose to purchase the Hub and run it on your own you'll be able to configure those limits up or down to meet your needs.

Note that these limits only affect the amount of data stored on Hub. There is no limit on the amount of data that can flow through Hub and be stored by Analyst.

How can I see the size of the data pulled down to my desktop?

You can view how much space is in use for your local repository by right-clicking on the User repository and selecting Properties. This will tell you the total number of sessions in the repository as well as the number of bytes in use.

After sending an email of a session, how do I delete all previous sessions?

If you use the Gibraltar Hub this can be fully automated (just set the purgeSentSessions option). Otherwise the files stay locally until they are pruned due to space or age. The reason for this is that while the hub can confirm receipt email can't in practice so the agent can't be sure the content is safe to delete. Our documentation includes more details on auto sending with Hub.

Gibraltar Agent also includes logic to automatically prune log data. By default, the Agent will prune data after 90 days or 50MB. Check our doc for more details on session file pruning.

I have a process that runs continuously but is not logging 99% of the time. The files seem larger than I’d expect.  Can this be reduced?

Gibraltar files contain more than just log messages.  For example, the Agent tracks a number of performance metrics which can add 2-4MB per day of data.  

By default, Gibraltar collects a set of system performance counters even while your process is idle. You can reduce the file size by tuning which performance metrics are enabled. You can enable/disable them by section to have only the metrics that are likely to be interesting turned on. See this help page for data collection configuration options.

In particular are the enableDiskPerformance, enableNetworkPerformance, and enableSystemPerformance settings.  If your process doesn't use much disk or network, disabling the relevant section can reduce long running log file size notably depending on the number of disks or network interfaces in the system.

Can Gibraltar be configured to only access the Internet when the user hits the hot-key to send  files?

Yes, absolutely. All data is stored locally on the computer and only sent under three conditions:

  • Send is explicitly requested programmatically by your code
  • Send is requested by the through the Packager Dialog invoked from the hot key
  • You have configured Agent to automatically send logs to Gibraltar Hub

The Agent will make no attempt to establish any network connection outside of this. The Analyst (the GUI used to analyze collected log data) does make some Internet requests to do license activation and to load an RSS feed, which is covered in our online documentation so you know exactly what it's sending, retrieving, etc. If it can't make contact then no functionality is lost.

Is the Gibraltar Agent active after closing the app?

The Agent runs in-process with the application so it ends when the application ends. If you use the SendSessionsOnExit option, then a Packager process is spawned when the application starts to exit to do the sending after the original process ends.