IBM Support

Debug Service

News


Abstract

IBM i Navigator can now start and stop the debug servers and the new debug service.

Content

 
  • For information on ILE Debugging see ILE Debugging inside of Visual Studio Code
    • Regenerate Debug Service Trust Store
      • Requires Master Key 1 set
    • Configuring & starting the service
    • Requirements
 
 

IBM i Navigator can now start and stop the debug servers and the new debug service. This can be done from Network > Servers > TCP/IP Servers

Network > Servers > TCP/IP Servers

  • System Debug Server
  • IDE Debug Server
  • Debug Service

System Debug Server

Note: This server is the same as the System Debug on Navigator before the March 2023 PTFs

The System Debug server is equivalent to the host-based components of the IBM i Debugger - the Debug Hub and Debug Server. This is the same debugger used in RSS. When starting this server, it will create jobs QTESDBGHUB and QTESDBGSVR.

More information about the IBM i Debugger can be found here:  7.3, 7.4 ,7.5

IDE Debugger Server

This starts the debug server router function (QB5ROUTER). Only one debug server router can be active at a time.

This is the server used by IBM Rational Developer for i (RDI) debugger and the new debug service.

 
Debug Service

This new service comes shipped with the IBM I Debugger for IBM i Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration Debug (Merlin). You will be able to debug RPG/COBOL/C/C++/CL batch programs. Below are the required host PTFs to enable this feature:

ReleasePTF
7.3SI80858
7.4SI81031
7.5SI81035

This new service is a host-side headless Eclipse application to support Merlin but can also be used independently. For more information regarding using the IBM i Debug Service, refer to the Merlin Debugging documentation

A keystore file and its password are required to start the service.  Browse the IFS to select a keystore file and provide a password for the keystore. 

To run Start Instance > Debug Service on IBM i 7.5 or earlier, profile QSECOFR needs to be enabled.  The password cannot be expired, and the expiration date needs to be after the current date on the system.  For IBM i 7.6, QSECOFR_NC is used.

Debug Service Configuration

Keystore File

The keystore file is a Java keystore, which contains the certificate chain for SSL/TLS communication. It may be created by your system administrator and signed with your organization’s internal CA certificate.  If you do not have one, you can use the Java keytool command or the openssl utility to generate a Java keystore that contains a self-signed certificate. The most common keystore formats are PKCS12 (often with .p12 or .pfx extensions) and JKS (often with .jks extension).

 

The required PTF for running version 3 of the debugger can be checked by looking at the file: 

/QIBM/ProdData/IBMiDebugService/package.json.

It should have the following content for version 3:

{
"version": "3.0.0",
"java": "11"
}
 

The file qibm/userdata/IBMIDEBUGSERVICE/startDebugService_workspace needs to provide access to QDBGSRV.  If it does not have authority for QDBGSRV to access the file, starting the debug service may fail.  To grant access, remove the file and restart debugger with Navigator (file will be created) or issue this command:

CHGAUT OBJ('/qibm/userdata/IBMIDEBUGSERVICE/startDebugService_workspace')
USER(QDBGSRV) DTAAUT(*RWX)
 

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Document Information

Modified date:
13 November 2025

UID

ibm16955593

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