KB-2308 Missing user_management.csv file in Appian

Symptoms

When searching through the <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/ directory, the /audit/ subdirectory does not contain user_management.csv, or is missing entirely.

Cause

By design, the groups engine writes to user_management.csv. However, the <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/audit/ directory gets created by the application server when Appian is initialized. Therefore, on installations in which engines and the application server are decoupled, such as with distributed topologies, the <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/audit/ directory may be missing on nodes that contain the groups engine. In other cases, user_management.csv may be missing from the <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/audit directory on nodes that contain the application server(s). The latter scenario is expected behavior when the groups engine is located on a different node than the application server.

Action

This has been addressed in Appian 23.2 and later. The user_management.csv file will be created in the <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/audit/ directory on nodes that contain the groups engine. If running Appian on Kubernetes, this log will be located in the groups engine pod.

Upgrade Appian to 23.2 to address this issue.

Workaround

If the <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/audit/ directory is missing, it can be created manually by following the below steps:

Self-Managed Appian

1. On each node that contains the groups engine, navigate to the logs directory: cd <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/
2. If the /audit/ directory is not present, create it: mkdir audit
3. If the /audit/ directory is present, but there is no user_management.csv, create an empty user_management.csv: touch audit/user_management.csv

The groups engine will now begin to write to user_management.csv in the <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/audit directory of nodes that contain it.

Appian on Kubernetes

1. Exec into the groups engine pod by running kubectl exec appian-k8s-appn-service-manager-groups-0 -ti -n <my-appian-site> -- bash
2. Access the /logs/ directory: cd logs/
3. Manually create the /audit/ directory: mkdir audit

The groups engine will now begin to write to user_management.csv in the <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/audit/ directory of the groups engine pod.

Affected Versions

This article applies to all versions of Appian.

Last Reviewed: May 2024