Use IBM MQ trace

IBM MQ trace enables you to collect detailed information about what IBM MQ is doing.

About this task

You normally enable tracing only when asked to do so by your IBM service representative. Tracing slows down IBM MQ and the trace files can rapidly become very large.

For more information, see strmqtrc and endmqtrc in the IBM MQ online product documentation.

Use IBM MQ Explorer to start and stop tracing is equivalent to using the control commands strmqtrc -e and endmqtrc -e, which trace all processes on the specified queue manager.

IBM MQ trace does not trace IBM MQ Explorer. For details about how to trace IBM MQ Explorer, see Troubleshooting.

Starting trace

About this task

To turn on the trace service:

Procedure

1. In the Navigator view, right-click IBM MQ, then click Trace....
2. In the Trace dialog, select one or more of the following options:
   • To output data for every trace point in the system, click All.
   • To activate tracing at high-detail level for flow processing trace points, click Detail.
3. Click Start.

Results

The IBM MQ trace starts writing information to the trace files. IBM MQ continues to write to the trace files until you stop the trace.

Stop trace

About this task

To turn off the trace service:

Procedure

1. In the Navigator view, right-click IBM MQ, then click Trace....
2. Click Stop.

Results

The IBM MQ trace stops writing to the trace files.

Viewing trace files

About this task

We can find the local trace files in the trace subdirectory of the directory that was chosen during the installation for data files. If you installed to the default directories, the trace directory is in the IBM MQ program installation directory.

The files in the trace directory have names like AMQ123.TRC where 123 is the PID of the process that wrote the file. We can view the files using any viewer that can display a simple ASCII file.