Problem Diagnostics LabToolkit

 

Sui Peng Fei

suipf@cn.ibm.com

 

Welcome to Problem Diagnostics LabToolkit. Feel free to contact me if you have any comments or suggestions.

 

Introduction

Problem Diagnostics Lab Toolkit (PDLT) is a web application which helps users to improve their problem diagnostics skills by reproducing various common problems, monitoring the impacts of different actions, and investigating these problems according to guidance. It will help users understand common problems well and gain not only knowledge but also experience which plays a very important role in the timely resolution of problems. By using this tool developers will have a good understanding on the impact of typical bad code and system administrators will know more about symptoms of certain problems thereby speeding the process of problem resolution.

Prerequisite

·       WebSphere Application Server 6.0.2 or later

The following exception will be thrown if older version of WebSphere Application is used:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: java/util/regex/PatternSyntaxException

 

Definitions

·       Action Code Java code that will be embedded in a jsp file.

·       Action button An button that will invoke the jsp that contains the embedded java code

Features

·       A framework to manage all the scenarios, guidance and action code

·       A hot java code editor to edit java code which can be invoked by action buttons without redeployment

·       A integrated monitor that show the detail status of Application threads, used memory and cpu usage, etc

·       A build-in stress engine that simulate workload on the embedded java code

·       A dump facility to generate all kinds of dump files which will be used to diagnose certain problem

·       A set of exist scenarios to help users reproduce some common problems. Users can expect to see more problem type and scenarios being consolidated into this tool.

                                                                        

How to run this tool

PDLT is an ear that needs to be installed on a websphere application server and accessed from web browse.

Just install the ear file on WebSphere Application Server using the default install options

Start the installed application, and access it from http://hostname:port/LabToolkit. It make take one minutes to load the dojo libraty

 

 

1.  Select a problem type from the problem tree

 

 

 

2.  Select a scenario from the scenario list

 

 

A wizard and several action button will show up.

 

 

3.  Walk through the wizard steps

 

 

 

4.  View or edit the action code by right click the action button and select Edit menu

 

 

 

Edit the action code. 

 

 

5.  Click the action buttons to invoke the action code.

 

 

6.  Monitor the Threads, Memory and Cpu status from the Monitor Accordion pane on the left side

 

 

7. Generate dump files.

The following dump files can be generated from the Generate Dump menu:

 

 

 

 

8. Add a new problem type

 

 

Input the problem name and description.

 

 

 

9.  Add new scenario to the problem type.

 

 

Input the scenario name and description

 

 

 

10. Add new wizard steps.

 

 

 

Edit the title and content of the new wizard step.

 

 

 

11. Add new action buttons.

You can Add embedded java code, define methods/static varibales or upload jar files.