The CMAS and MAS trace facilities

The following sections describe the CICSPlex® SM trace facilities and the type of information they provide about CMASs and MASs.

Tracing in a CMAS

The CICS® internal trace facilities must always be active in a CMAS.

When a CMAS is initialized, CICSPlex SM ensures that the CICS trace facility is active and the trace table is large enough. The trace table settings required by the CMAS, along with the CICS SIT options that you need to use in order to establish these settings, are in Table 2:

Table 2. Trace table setting required by the CMAS
Trace variable Required setting CICS SIT option
Internal trace On INTTR=ON
Trace table size 2MB TRTABSZ=2048
Master trace Off SYSTR=OFF
User trace On USERTR=ON

If the CICS trace facilities cannot be activated with these settings, CMAS initialization is canceled and you receive an error message.

Additionally, the CICS AUXTRACE facility should be active (for user records only) in a CMAS. If this facility is not active when a problem occurs, it may be necessary to recreate the problem with the facility turned on.

Tracing in a MAS

The CICS trace facilities do not have to be active in a MAS. Provided CICSPlex SM communication facilities are available, MAS trace records are sent to a connected CMAS for recording; the only exceptions are trace records written for the CICSPlex SM communication facility itself. If communication is not available, or if you are diagnosing a problem in the MAS, you may need to activate CICS tracing in the MAS.

Notes:
  1. Although it is not required, it is strongly recommended that internal and AUXTRACE facilities be active (for user records only) in a MAS. CICSPlex SM writes only exception records in a MAS, unless other trace records are specifically requested.
  2. Start of changeIf any local MAS is in communication with a CMAS, trace data is shipped from the MAS to the CMAS, and a full, formatted user trace record is produced. End of change
  3. Start of changeIf any local MAS is not in communication with a CMAS (either because the Communications component is not yet active or because there is a problem with Communications itself):
    • A full, formatted trace record is produced if the MAS itself is running CICS/ESA 4.1 (or later).
    • An abbreviated trace record is produced if the MAS is running CICS/MVS™. The abbreviated trace record provides the following information:
      • Trace point ID
      • Module ID
      • Debugging text
    End of change

Types and levels of tracing

Each CMAS and MAS component can make use of three types and up to 32 levels of tracing.

Standard trace (levels 1 and 2)

Standard trace points are designed to track the normal processing path of a component. There are two levels of standard tracing, level 1 and level 2. Trace points of this type are provided by every CMAS and MAS component. However, standard tracing is not normally active because it can cause additional overhead.

Usage Note

Level 1 and 2 trace points should be activated only for a specific CMAS or MAS component and only at the request of customer support personnel.

Level 1 trace points are used for:

Level 2 trace points provide information to supplement a level 1 trace and they require level 1 tracing to be active for the same component. Level 2 trace points are used for:

Note:
Level 1 tracing must be active in order for level 2 traces to be collected. If level 2 tracing is requested for a component where level 1 is not active, no level 2 trace data is collected.

Special trace (levels 3-32)

Special trace points can be used by a component for special-purpose traces that are unique to its situation. Each CMAS and MAS component has levels 3 through 32 available for special tracing. These trace levels provide detailed internal information about the component. For example, trace level 16, called a timing trace, is used by some components to record how long a request took to complete. This type of trace data can be used to evaluate the performance of a component under specific conditions.

Usage Note

Level 3-32 trace points should be activated only for a specific CMAS or MAS component and only at the request of customer support personnel.

Exception trace

Exception tracing is always performed by each CMAS and MAS component when it detects an exceptional condition. The goal of this type of trace is first failure data capture, to capture data that might be relevant to the exception as soon as possible after it is detected. All CMAS and MAS errors result in an exception trace entry. Exception tracing cannot be disabled and all exception trace points are always active.

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