Enabling Tracing

The IBM Application Gateway (IAG) provides configurable tracing capabilities that can aid in problem determination. Unlike message logs, trace logs (or tracing) are not enabled by default.
Trace data is intended primarily for use by IBM Software Support. Trace data might be requested as part of diagnosing a reported problem. However, experienced product administrators can use trace data to diagnose and correct problems in an IAG environment.

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Note
Use trace with caution. It is intended as a tool to use under the direction of IBM Software Support. Messages from tracing are sometimes cryptic, are not translated, and can severely degrade system performance.

Trace logs are best suited to situations where a problem is easily reproduced, is short-lived in duration, and can be reproduced without significant trace generation from other system activity. Enabling tracing can adversely affect the performance of the IAG.

Configuration

In order to enable tracing the settings must be added to the IAG configuration YAML file in the logging tracing node. The configuration options are detailed in the YAML reference documentation: Tracing.

Example

An example configuration to enable tracing is provided below:

logging:
  tracing:
    - file_name: /var/iag/trace.log
      component: pdweb.debug
      level: 9
    - file_name: /var/iag/trace.log
      component: pdweb.http.transformation
      level: 5

Components

Name	Description
iag.azn	Used to trace the IAG authorization decisions.
iag.statsd	Used to trace statistical events which are sent to a statsd server.
pdweb.authn	Used to trace the IAG authentication activity.
pdweb.debug	Used to trace the HTTP headers sent between the IAG and the client. Caution: This trace could contain sensitive information.
pdweb.doccache	Used to trace the IAG document caching activity.
pdweb.drains	Used to trace the IAG activity for the normal closing of Internet Explorer browsers (where the 'user-agent' header contains "MSIE") sockets.
pdweb.filter	Used to trace all IAG filter activity.
pdweb.filter.snippet	Used to trace the IAG snippet filter activity.
pdweb.http	Used to trace the IAG HTTP communication.
pdweb.http.cors	Used to trace the IAG CORS activity.
pdweb.http.ratelimit	Used to trace the IAG HTTP rate limiting activity.
pdweb.http2stats	Used to trace the IAG HTTP statistics activity.
pdweb.http.transformation	Used to trace HTTP transformation processing. Caution: This component traces the header information in the request, which might contain sensitive information.
pdweb.https	Used to trace the IAG HTTPS communication.
pdweb.http2.client	Used to trace HTTP/2 client connections.
pdweb.http2.jct	Used to trace HTTP/2 resource server connections.
pdweb.sescache	Used to trace the IAG session cache activity.
pdweb.snoop	Used to trace all HTTP packets that are sent to or from the IAG. This component logs the HTTP headers and the message body for requests and responses. Caution: This component traces each request and response in its entirety as it is read off the socket. This trace might contain sensitive information.
pdweb.snoop.client	Used to trace the HTTP packets that are transmitted between the IAG and the client. Caution: This component traces each request and response in its entirety as it is read off the socket. This trace might contain sensitive information.
pdweb.snoop.jct	Used to trace the HTTP packets that are transmitted between the IAG and the back-end resource servers. Caution: This component traces each request and response in its entirety as it is read off the socket. This trace might contain sensitive information.
pdweb.snoop.oidc	Used to trace the HTTP OIDC activity. Caution: This trace could contain sensitive information.
pdweb.thread	Used to trace the IAG thread activity.
pdweb.threads	Used to trace the IAG worker thread activity.
pdweb.usersessidcache	Used to trace the IAG user session ID cache activity.
pdweb.url	Used to trace the creation and parsing of the URL.
pdweb.wan.cache	Used to trace the caching activity between the IAG and the back-end resource servers.
pdweb.wan.eai	Used to trace the external authentication processing.
pdweb.wan.general	Used to trace the general activity between the IAG and the back-end resource servers.
pdweb.wan.http	Used to trace the HTTP communication between the IAG and the back-end resource servers.
pdweb.wan.server	Used to trace the IAG HTTP server activity.
pdweb.wan.ssl	Used to trace the SSL connection between the IAG and the back-end resource servers.
pdweb.websocket	Used to trace the IAG WebSocket communication.
pdweb.wns.authn	Used to trace the authentication processing.
pdweb.wns.compress	Used to trace the IAG compression of HTTP messages.
pdweb.wns.session	Used to trace the IAG sessions, as they are stored within the session cache and retrieved or removed from the session cache.
pdweb.wns.templates	Used to trace the IAG template activity.