Error Instance Configuration Settings

The configuration of a ServiceControl instance can be adjusted via the ServiceControl Management utility or by directly modifying the ServiceControl.exe.config file. The settings listed are applicable to the appSettings section of the configuration file unless otherwise specified.

The configuration of a ServiceControl Error instance is controlled by the ServiceControl.exe.config file or by setting environment variables. When a setting configuration exists as both an environment variable and in the application configuration file the environment variable setting takes precedence.

Deployments using the ServiceControl Management utility (SCMU) can use that application to make a subset of configuration settings which are read from and written to the application configuration file.

Locating the configuration file using SCMU

Host settings

The following documents should be reviewed prior to modifying configuration settings:

• Setting a Custom Hostname for guidance and details.
• Securing ServiceControl for an overview of the security implications of changing the configuration.

ServiceControl/InstanceName

Added in version 5.5.0

The name to be used by the error instance and the name of the input queue.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_INSTANCENAME
App config key	ServiceControl/InstanceName
SCMU field	Instance/Queue Name

Type	Default value
string	Particular.ServiceControl

ServiceControl/HostName

The hostname to bind the embedded HTTP API server to; modify this setting to bind to a specific hostname, e.g. sc.mydomain.com and make the machine remotely accessible.

This field can also contain a * as a wildcard to allow remote connections that use any hostname.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_HOSTNAME
App config key	ServiceControl/HostName
SCMU field	HOST NAME

Type	Default value
string	localhost

ServiceControl/Port

The port to bind the embedded HTTP API server.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_PORT
App config key	ServiceControl/Port
SCMU field	PORT NUMBER

Type	Default value
int	33333

ServiceControl/DatabaseMaintenancePort

The port to expose the RavenDB database.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_DATABASEMAINTENANCEPORT
App config key	ServiceControl/DatabaseMaintenancePort
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
int	33334

ServiceControl/VirtualDirectory

The virtual directory to bind the embedded HTTP server to; modify this setting to bind to a specific virtual directory.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_VIRTUALDIRECTORY
App config key	ServiceControl/VirtualDirectory
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
string	None

ServiceControl/RemoteInstances

A configuration that specifies one or more attached Audit instances. See also ServiceControl Remote Instances.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_REMOTEINSTANCES
App config key	ServiceControl/RemoteInstances
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
string	None

Embedded Database

ServiceControl/DbPath

The path where the internal RavenDB is located.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_AUDIT_DBPATH
App config key	ServiceControl.Audit/DbPath
SCMU field	Database Path

Type	Default value
string	%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Particular\ServiceControl\<instance_name>\DB

ServiceControl/LogPath

The path for the ServiceControl logs.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_LOGPATH
App config key	ServiceControl/LogPath
SCMU field	LOG PATH

Type	Default value
string	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Particular\ServiceControl\logs

ServiceControl/LogLevel

Controls the LogLevel of the ServiceControl logs.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_LOGLEVEL
App config key	ServiceControl/LogLevel
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
string	Info

ServiceControl/RavenDBLogLevel

Controls the LogLevel of the RavenDB logs. See Logging.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_RAVENDBLOGLEVEL
App config key	ServiceControl/RavenDBLogLevel
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value

| string | Operations |

Valid settings are: None, Information, Operations.

Recoverability

ServiceControl/TimeToRestartErrorIngestionAfterFailure

Controls the maximum time delay to wait before restarting the error ingestion pipeline after detecting a connection problem.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_TIMETORESTARTAUDITINGESTIONAFTERFAILURE
App config key	ServiceControl/TimeToRestartAuditIngestionAfterFailure
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
timespan	60 seconds

Valid settings are between 5 seconds and 1 hour.

ServiceControl/IngestErrorMessages

Version: 4.33.0+

Set to false to disable ingesting new error messages. Useful in some upgrade scenarios.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_INGESTERRORMESSAGES
App config key	ServiceControl/IngestErrorMessages
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
bool	true

Data retention

ServiceControl/ExpirationProcessTimerInSeconds

The number of seconds to wait between checking for expired messages.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_EXPIRATIONPROCESSTIMERINSECONDS
App config key	ServiceControl/ExpirationProcessTimerInSeconds
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
int	600 (10 minutes)

Valid range is 0 to 10800 (3 Hours).

Setting the value to 0 will disable the expiration process. This is not recommended and it is only provided for fault finding.

ServiceControl/ErrorRetentionPeriod

The grace period that errored messages are kept before they are deleted.

For a message to be considered for deletion, it needs to have a status of either Archived, RetryIssued, or Resolved.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_ERRORRETENTIONPERIOD
App config key	ServiceControl/ErrorRetentionPeriod
SCMU field	ERROR RETENTION PERIOD

Type	Default value
timespan	None (required)

Valid range for this setting is between 5 days and 45 days.

ServiceControl/EventRetentionPeriod

The grace period to keep event logs before they are deleted.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_EVENTRETENTIONPERIOD
App config key	ServiceControl/EventRetentionPeriod
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
timespan	14 days

Valid range for this setting is from 1 hour to 200 days.

Performance tuning

ServiceControl/MaximumConcurrencyLevel

This setting controls how many messages can be processed concurrently (in parallel) by ServiceControl. The default value is 10.

In some cases, the ingestion rate can be too high and the underlying database cannot keep up with indexing the new messages. In this case, consider lowering the maximum concurrency level to a value that still allows a suitable ingestion rate while easing the pressure on the database.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_MAXIMUMCONCURRENCYLEVEL
App config key	ServiceControl/MaximumConcurrencyLevel
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
int	10

ServiceControl/EnableFullTextSearchOnBodies

Use this setting to configure whether the bodies of processed error messages should be full-text indexed for searching.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_ENABLEFULLTEXTSEARCHONBODIES
App config key	ServiceControl/EnableFullTextSearchOnBodies
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
bool	true

Transport

ServiceControl/TransportType

The transport type to run ServiceControl with.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_TRANSPORTTYPE or TRANSPORTTYPE
App config key	ServiceControl/TransportType
SCMU field	TRANSPORT

Type	Default value
string	MSMQ

Valid values are documented in the ServiceControl transport configuration documentation.

NServiceBus/Transport

The connection string for the transport. This setting must be entered in the connectionStrings section of the configuration file when configured using the app config.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_CONNECTIONSTRING or CONNECTIONSTRING
App config key	NServiceBus/Transport in connectionStrings
SCMU field	TRANSPORT CONNECTION STRING

Type	Default value
string	None

Valid values are documented in the ServiceControl transport configuration documentation.

ServiceBus/ErrorQueue

The name of the error queue to ingest messages from.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICEBUS_ERRORQUEUE
App config key	ServiceBus/ErrorQueue
SCMU field	ERROR QUEUE NAME

Type	Default value
string	error

ServiceControl/ForwardErrorMessages

Use this setting to configure whether processed error messages are forwarded to another queue or not. This entry should be set to false if there is no external process reading messages from the ServiceBus/ErrorLogQueue.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_FORWARDERRORMESSAGES
App config key	ServiceControl/ForwardErrorMessages
SCMU field	ERROR FORWARDING

Type	Default value
bool	false (Off)

This entry should be set to false if there is no external process reading messages from the Error Forwarding Queue.

ServiceBus/ErrorLogQueue

The error queue name to use for forwarding error messages. This setting is ignored unless ServiceControl/ForwardErrorMessages is enabled.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICEBUS_ERRORLOGQUEUE
App config key	ServiceBus/ErrorLogQueue
SCMU field	ERROR FORWARDING QUEUE NAME

Type	Default value
string	<ErrorQueue>.log

Usage Reporting when using ServiceControl

LicensingComponent/ServiceControlThroughputDataQueue

Version: 5.4.0+

The queue on which throughput data is received by the ServiceControl Error instance. This setting must match the equivalent Monitoring/ServiceControlThroughputDataQueue setting for the Monitoring instance.

In most instances these settings do not need to be modified.

If running multiple setups of the Platform Tools (i.e. multiple versions of ServiceControl error and monitoring instances) then modify these settings so that the queue on each monitoring instance is matched to the queue of its error instance.

If using MSMQ transport and the monitoring instance is installed on a different machine than the ServiceControl error instance, only the monitoring instance setting needs to be modified to include the machine name of the error instance in the queue address.

Type: string

Default: ServiceControl.ThroughputData

Usage Reporting when using the Azure Service Bus transport

LicensingComponent/ASB/TenantId

Version: 5.4.0+

The Azure Tenant ID.

Type: string

LicensingComponent/ASB/SubscriptionId

Version: 5.4.0+

The Azure subscription ID.

Type: string

LicensingComponent/ASB/ClientId

Version: 5.4.0+

The Client ID (aka Application ID) for an Azure service principal that has access to read metrics data for the Azure Service Bus namespace.

Type: string

Example Client ID from an Azure App Registration:

LicensingComponent/ASB/ClientSecret

Version: 5.4.0+

The client secret for an Azure service principal that has access to read metrics data for the Azure Service Bus namespace.

Type: string

LicensingComponent/ASB/ManagementUrl

Version: 5.4.0+

The Azure ManagementUrl URL.

Type: string

Default: https://management.azure.com

This setting only needs to be configured if not using the public AzureCloud environment. For other environments:

• AzureGermanCloud - https://management.microsoftazure.de
• AzureUSGovernment - https://management.usgovcloudapi.net
• AzureChinaCloud - https://management.chinacloudapi.cn

Usage Reporting when using the Amazon SQS transport

LicensingComponent/AmazonSQS/AccessKey

Version: 5.4.0+

The AWS Access Key ID to use to discover queue names and gather per-queue metrics.

Type: string

LicensingComponent/AmazonSQS/SecretKey

Version: 5.4.0+

The AWS Secret Access Key to use to discover queue names and gather per-queue metrics.

Type: string

LicensingComponent/AmazonSQS/Profile

Version: 5.4.0+

The name of a local AWS credentials profile to use to discover queue names and gather per-queue metrics.

Type: string

LicensingComponent/AmazonSQS/Region

Version: 5.4.0+

The AWS region to use when accessing AWS services.

Type: string

LicensingComponent/AmazonSQS/Prefix

Version: 5.4.0+

Report only on queues that begin with the specified prefix. This is commonly used when one AWS account must contain queues for multiple projects or multiple environments.

Type: string

Usage Reporting when using the RabbitMQ transport

LicensingComponent/RabbitMQ/ApiUrl

Version: 5.4.0+

The RabbitMQ management URL.

Type: string

LicensingComponent/RabbitMQ/UserName

Version: 5.4.0+

The username to access the RabbitMQ management interface.

Type: string

LicensingComponent/RabbitMQ/Password

Version: 5.4.0+

The password to access the RabbitMQ management interface.

Type: string

Usage Reporting when using the SqlServer transport

LicensingComponent/SqlServer/ConnectionString

Version: 5.4.0+

The connection string that will provide at least read access to all queue tables.

Type: string

LicensingComponent/SqlServer/AdditionalCatalogs

Version: 5.4.0+

Specifies any additional databases on the same server that also contain NServiceBus message queues.

Type: string

Plugin-specific

ServiceControl/HeartbeatGracePeriod

The period that defines whether an endpoint is considered alive or not since the last received heartbeat.

Type: timespan

Default: 00:00:40 (40 secs)

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_HEARTBEATGRACEPERIOD
App config key	ServiceControl/HeartbeatGracePeriod
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
timespan	00:00:40 (40 secs)

When configuring the heartbeat grace period, make sure it is greater than the heartbeat interval defined by the plugin.

Troubleshooting

ServiceControl/DataSpaceRemainingThreshold

The percentage threshold for the Message database storage space check. If the remaining hard drive space drops below this threshold (as a percentage of the total space on the drive), then the check will fail, alerting the user.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_DATASPACEREMAININGTHRESHOLD
App config key	ServiceControl/DataSpaceRemainingThreshold
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
int	20 (percent)

ServiceControl/MinimumStorageLeftRequiredForIngestion

This setting was introduced in version 4.28. The percentage threshold for the Critical message database storage space check. If the remaining hard drive space drops below this threshold (as a percentage of the total space on the drive), then the check will fail, alerting the user. The message ingestion will also be stopped to prevent data loss. Message ingestion will resume once more disk space is made available.

Context	Name
Environment variable	SERVICECONTROL_MINIMUMSTORAGELEFTREQUIREDFORINGESTION
App config key	ServiceControl/MinimumStorageLeftRequiredForIngestion
SCMU field	N/A

Type	Default value
int	5 (percent)