Summary of changes

• With Debug Manager, you can leverage Dynamic Virtual IP Addressing (DVIPA) available in IBM Explorer for z/OS to concurrently run identical setups on different systems in your sysplex, and have TCP/IP, optionally with the help of WLM, distribute the client connections among these systems. Ensure that each Debug Manager has a unique external port per system and the port is explicitly defined in TCP/IP definitions. For more information, see Distributed Dynamic VIPA.
• When not run as a started task, Debug Manager now queries your security product for explicit permission to start. For more information, see Starting Debug Manager as a user job.

• You now only need to expose one port to use Debug Profile Service. A new configuration switch is added to eqaprof.env to select whether to use secure HTTP protocol. For more information, see Customizing with the sample job EQAPRFSU.

• As an alternative of a keystore file, you can now use a RACF managed key ring to enable secure communication with Debug Profile Service. For more information, see Enabling secure communication with a RACF managed key ring.
• A new optional HOST attribute is added to the CICS region configuration. For more information, see the instructions in the /etc/debug/dtcn.ports sample configuration file.
• The Debug Profile Service API now provides more detailed diagnostic messages when authentication fails.

• Log files can now be found in the user's home directory. For more information, see Troubleshooting using log files.

• You can now also use Remote Debug Service to collect code coverage results similar to the headless code coverage collector for IBM® Wazi Developer for Red Hat® CodeReady Workspaces or IBM Developer z/OS® Enterprise Edition. For more information, see Generating code coverage in headless mode using Remote Debug Service.

• Remote Debug Service can now be configured to collect headless code coverage. For more information, see Adding support for Remote Debug Service.

• z/OS Debugger is included as part of the new product IBM Wazi for Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces and provides debug functions with the following clients:
  • IBM Z Open Development Eclipse client
  • Wazi Development, a set of Visual Studio Code extensions including IBM Z Open Debug

• Starting from V14.2.3, IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition also offers Wazi Development, a set of Visual Studio Code extensions including IBM Z Open Debug.

• You can now export debug profiles in an export file, and import from a debug profile export file or a workspace that was created with an older version of the product.
• A search field is added to display only the profiles that match your search text.
• More columns are now available. You can hide or display a column, modify the width of a column, and reorder the columns.
• You can now return to the default order of the profiles by clicking the column header.
• You can now activate a non-CICS debug profile for code coverage.
• If Debug Manager is not available and the debug daemon is configured with a secured port, when you activate a profile, the secured port is automatically detected.

For more information, see Managing debug profiles with the z/OS Debugger Profiles view.

• You can now view the batch job in the Remote Systems view.
• You can now select more than one step in the existing JCL to be augmented with debug or code coverage options.

For more information, see Launching a debug session for z/OS Batch applications.

• IBM z/OS Debugger preferences: You can now specify to inactivate the remote profiles when the Remote System Explorer connection associated with the profiles disconnects so that the debugger will not be triggered accidentally when you run applications that match the active profiles.
• Debug Daemon preferences: Instructions are added to set up a secure daemon connection.

For more information, see Setting debug preferences.

• Support is added for CICS Transaction Server for z/OS Version 5 Release 6.

• In Debug Tool compatibility mode, support is added for TEST(SEPARATE(DSNAME),SOURCE) in Enterprise COBOL for z/OS Version 6 Release 2 with APAR PH04485 installed or later. Specify TEST(SEPARATE(DSNAME),SOURCE) to store the separate debug file name, which is the SYSDEBUG DD data set name, in the program object. You will not need to specify the separate debug file location if it is not moved after compilation. For more information, see Choosing TEST or NOTEST compiler suboptions for COBOL programs.

• The z/OS Debugger Profiles view is added to create and manage CICS and non-CICS debug profiles. The following profiles and launch configurations are migrated to this new view:
  • DTCN profiles from the DTCN Local Profile view. The DTCN profiles are now called CICS profiles in the client.
  • DTSP profiles from the DTSP Local Profile view. The DTSP profiles are now called non-CICS profiles in the client.
  • Remote CICS Application launch configurations
  • Remote Db2 Application launch configurations
  • Remote IMS Application launch configurations

  Edit the profiles to provide additional information that is required before you activate any profiles. For more information, see Managing debug profiles with the z/OS Debugger Profiles view, Creating a debug profile for a CICS application, and Creating a debug profile for a non-CICS application.

  To use this view, system programmers need to configure the following services:

  • Remote System Explorer from z/OS Explorer is required for z/OS connections.
  • To enable all the features in the view for the best user experience, see Adding support for Debug Profile Service and APIs. Use z/OS Explorer host V3.1.1.23 or later with Debug Profile Service.
  • For CICS users, also see Adding support for the DTCN profiles APIs and views.

• The DTCN and DTSP plug-ins are deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

• MVS Batch Application launch configurations are replaced with z/OS Batch Application using property groups and z/OS Batch Application using existing JCL launch configurations to simplify debugging and running code coverage on batch applications on IBM Z. Any MVS Batch Application launch configurations are automatically migrated to the appropriate new configuration types. You can use debug profiles with z/OS Batch Application using existing JCL launch configurations.

  For more information, see Launching a debug session for z/OS Batch applications.

  z/OS Batch Application launch configurations require the Remote System Explorer from z/OS Explorer.

• A simple TEST runtime option now starts z/OS Debugger in delay debug mode under most conditions for non-CICS tasks if the Debug Profile Service API is started. This option simplifies the debug setup for batch jobs, IMS MPP regions, and WLM address spaces for Db2 stored procedures. For more information, see Simple TEST options.

• In Debug Tool compatibility mode, support is added for debugging COBOL programs that contain dynamic length elementary items and compiled with Enterprise COBOL for z/OS Version 6 Release 3. Dynamic length elementary items are not supported in standard mode.

• Instructions are added for debugging non-Language Environment programs under IMS Batch Terminal Simulator. For more information, see Debugging non-Language Environment IMS BTS programs.
• In IBM z/OS Debugger Customization Guide, Debug Manager (DBGMGR) is combined with Adding support for remote debug users. To use Eclipse GUI as the debugger interface, complete the instructions in Adding support for remote debug users.