Hang, high CPU, and high memory usage issues

Take the following steps if the system hangs or has an issue that involves high CPU or high memory usage.

About this task

If you report such issue and decide to restart when an instance is hanging, manually generate a gdb memory dump before restarting. Otherwise, gather it only if requested by IBM® support.

IBM Safer Payments pauses while a gdb dump is gathered. Therefore, run a gdb dump only when transaction processing has been moved to another instance, or when your system is automatically sending messages to another instance.

Procedure

  1. If it is not already installed, install the gdb tool.
    1. Sign on as the root user.
    2. Run the following command:
      yum install gdb

      If the command does not work, contact your System Administrator.

  2. Follow one of the next steps to either gather a gdb dump by using a script or manually.
  3. Option 1: gather a gdb dump by using a script.
    1. On the instance server, create a script with name spinfo.gdb.
    2. Copy the following code into the script and save it: 
      # Safer Payments gdb collection file
# Run as: gdb -p [pidof iris] --batch --command=spinfo.gdb > [DATE]_spgdb.txt
set height 0
shell date -u
shell ps -ef | grep iris
shell iris release
info files
thread apply all bt
    3. Sign on as the root user.
    4. Run the script:
      gdb -p [pidof iris] --batch --command=spinfo.gdb > `date +'%Y-%m-%d-%H%M'`_spgdb.txt
  4. Option 2: manually gather a gdb dump.
    1. Sign on as the root user.
    2. Run the following commands:
      rm -f gdb.txt
      touch gdb.txt
      iris release >> gdb.txt
      ps -ef | grep iris >> gdb.txt
      date -u >> gdb.txt
      gdb -p [pidof iris]
    3. After gdb is attached to the process, then run:
      (gdb)set logging overwrite off
      (gdb)set height 0
      (gdb)set logging on
      (gdb)info files
      (gdb)thread apply all bt
      (gdb)quit
      A gdb.txt file is created in the current directory.
    4. Run:
      date -u >> gdb.txt iris release >> gdb.txt
  5. Upload the following files to the case:
    • The [DATE]_spgdb.txt file if you used option 1, or the gdb.txt file if you used option 2.
    • A screen capture of Administration > System Internals > General Information. Make sure that the Release information is included in the screen capture.
    • The cfg.zip, including general configuration, audit and system logs, and latency logs.
    • The operating system logs for the instance, for example, /var/log/messages.
    • The operating system monitoring data, for example, nmon data, if available.

    For more information, see Sending information to IBM Support.