Preparing your application environment before you debug with IBM Z® Open Debug

Before you can debug from the IBM Developer for z/OS on VS Code or Wazi for Dev Spaces IDE, prepare your z/OS® and subsystem environment, and choose a method to start your application under the control of z/OS Debugger. How you prepare your environment will decide how you launch your application for debugging.

Procedure

  • Contact your system administrator to verify that z/OS Debugger has enough memory to run and debug your application. Modifying the region size (for example, REGION=0M) can help ensure that there is enough memory. Also, ensure that the job class that your application is running can run in this region size and that it allows for the elapsed time that the debug session will take.
  • If you are debugging a CICS® transaction, memory size, transaction enablement, and file access must be set by a CICS administrator. If z/OS Debugger has been installed and made available to your CICS region, then these steps should already be addressed. Contact your CICS administrator if you require any changes to these. For more information, see the Adding support for debugging under CICS section of the IBM® z/OS Debugger Customization Guide.
  • Ensure that you have access to and read permission for z/OS Debugger executable (SEQAMOD).
  • Ensure that you have access to the source of the compiled unit you are debugging. The source you need access to depends on the programming language, the compiler options, and the version of the compiler. The Preparing your program for debugging section of the IBM z/OS Debugger User's Guide describes, by programming language, the files you need to have access to.
  • Specify TEST(,,,RDS:*) as the TEST runtime option to start a debug session using Remote Debug Service.
    To learn more about TEST runtime option, see Example: TEST runtime options and Syntax of the TEST runtime option.
  • For non-CICS applications, when Debug Profile Service is active, you can use TEST with no suboptions specified to enable delay debug mode. For more information, see Simple TEST option.
  • Ensure that you have completed the appropriate instructions described in the Starting z/OS Debugger section of IBM z/OS Debugger User's Guide. That section provides instructions for starting programs that run in different environments.