WebSphere OSE Plugin Tracing: Using the Plugin trace to debug problems.

Technote (FAQ)
Problem
The WebSphere OSE Plugin trace can be used to help isolate where a WebSphere system failure is occurring.
Solution
Overview:

The OSE Plugin is the communication channel between HTTP Servers and WebSphere Application Servers. Whenever an HTTP Request is not received or an HTTP response is not delivered an error is reported by the OSE Plugin. The following technote explains how to run an OSE Plugin trace. These traces can sometimes assist in determining where in the request handling phase a failure occurred.

The OSE Plugin is a set of two utilities, one set of functions are loaded under the HTTP Server. Every supported HTTP Server will call a plugin function for each HTTP request received. This set is commonly called the OSE Plugin or the OSE HTTP Server Plugin. Tracing this component will indicate if a request was ever sent to a WebSphere application server.

The other set of utilities is loaded under the JVM of a WebSphere application server. This set is apart of the Servlet Engine transport. The Servlet Engine calls OSE Plugin functions to accept new requests and write HTTP responses back to the HTTP OSE Plugin. Tracing this side of an OSE Connection can help determine if the business application ever produced a response.



Data Collection: HTTP OSE Plugin Trace

1. Stop your web server and shut down WebSphere.
Validate that all processes associated with the HTTP Server and
application servers are stopped.


2. Clear out the logs in the WebSphere/AppServer/logs directory.
Clear out the error and access logs of the HTTP Server.
This step is to ensure that the logs produced only contains
information about one given failure.

3. Edit the following directives in your bootstrap.properties
file.

ose.native.log.level=ERROR|WARNING|TRACE|INFORM
ose.plugin.log.level=ERROR|WARNING|TRACE|INFORM

**Note:
- If configuration uses OSE Remote, the bootstrap.properties
file on the webserversystem must be updated.

- You must stop and restart the webserver for the above
changes to take effect. The OSE Plugin reloads the
bootstrap.properties upon HTTP Server startup.

- If you are only collecting a WebSphere OSE Plugin
trace, you can restart WebSphere, then the webserver
and run your test case.

To get a complete picture continue with the following instructions.

Data Collection : Servlet Engine Transport OSE Trace.

1. Using the Admin console:
    a. select application server (e.g. default server)
    b. select advanced tab
    c. enter name of trace output file
    (fully qualify path of filename)
    d. enter trace specification:
    com.ibm.servlet.engine.oselistener.*=all=enabled
    e. select apply
    f. stop, then start the application server

2. On your servlet engine advanced tab, click on settings,
Select 'Trace', 'Informational', 'Warning', and 'Error'.
Click OK and then Apply.


3. Stop and restart the Application Server.


Problem resolution:
The OSE HTTP Server trace log has a filename that conforms to the following format.

trace.log.<webserver>.<date-timestamp>

The Servlet Engine OSE Trace log has a filename that contains the words.

"native""was" "oop"

Please refer to the Technote on OSE Plugin error messages for a description of the messages printed to the above trace files.



    Related information

    Historical Number
    06858,419











    Document Information

    Product categories: Software, Application Servers, Distributed Application & Web Servers, WebSphere Application Server, Servlet Engine/Web Container
    Operating system(s): Multi-Platform
    Software version: 3.0, 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.0.2.1, 3.0.2.2, 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.2
    Software edition: Standard, Advanced
    Reference #: 1047451
    IBM Group: Software Group
    Modified date: 2002-02-25