Setting up traces on a z/OS system

Trace logs capture information about the operating environment to help you diagnose problems when components fail to operate as intended. The principal log types are the reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS1) trace log and the SYSPRINT job log.

When the monitoring agents and Tivoli Management Services components are initialized, RAS1 is one of the first processes started. You can set up RAS tracing for the monitoring agents, Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server, and Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server. When the OMEGAMON Subsystem is started, the SYSPRINT job log is opened for writing. RAS and SYSPRINT logs are in the English language only.

Trace logging is always enabled, but the default configuration for trace logging, such as the level of trace logging, depends on the source of the trace. For the monitoring agents on z/OS®, the default level is KBB_RAS1=ERROR, which means that only error messages are captured. This is the setting for minimal tracing. Similarly, the default level of tracing for the OMEGAMON Subsystem is to write only error messages to SYSPRINT. When you report a problem, IBM Software Support might ask you to enable a more in-depth and detailed form of tracing, such as one of those discussed under Syntax for RAS1 traces.

Tip

Overhead (CPU and I/O) associated with detailed RAS1 tracing might degrade performance of the monitoring agent. Restore RAS1 tracing for the monitoring agent to the default level KBB_RAS1=ERROR after you complete problem diagnosis.

You can also use communications traces during TCP/IP initialization to help diagnose problems in connections between the monitoring agent and the monitoring server.

The topics in this chapter provide instructions for setting up traces on z/OS for your own use and to forward to IBM Software Support.