Tracing with the AIX system trace

In addition to the IBM MQ trace, IBM MQ for AIX users can use the standard AIX system trace.

1. Set the -o parameter on the strmqtrc command to aix.
2. Gather the data, then run the endmqtrc command.
3. Format the results.

IBM MQ uses two trace hook identifiers:

X'30D'

This event is recorded by IBM MQ on entry to or exit from a subroutine.

X'30E'

This event is recorded by IBM MQ to trace data such as that being sent or received across a communications network.

Trace provides detailed execution tracing to help you to analyze problems. IBM service support personnel might ask for a problem to be re-created with trace enabled. The files produced by trace can be very large so it is important to qualify a trace, where possible. For example, we can optionally qualify a trace by time and by component.

1. Interactively. The following sequence of commands runs an interactive trace on the program myprog and ends the trace.

   trace -j30D,30E -o trace.file
   ->!myprog
   ->q
   

2. Asynchronously. The following sequence of commands runs an asynchronous trace on the program myprog and ends the trace.

   trace -a -j30D,30E -o trace.file
   myprog
   trcstop
   

We can format the trace file with the command:

trcrpt -t MQ_INSTALLATION_PATH/lib/amqtrc.fmt trace.file > report.file

MQ_INSTALLATION_PATH represents the high-level directory in which IBM MQ is installed.

report.file is the name of the file where we want to put the formatted trace output.