DSTrace with iMonitor Now that you have been introduced to the most common eDirectory processes, it's important that you know how to keep track of the health and general operation of those processes. To do this you can use iMonitor. iMonitor is presented in Chapter 5, "OES Management Tools," as one of the principal management tools for OES Linux. However, this section focuses on the iMonitor options for monitoring eDirectory processes and activities. Refer to Chapter 5 for information on iMonitor installation, general interface, and additional capabilities. For detailed feature information, see the OES Linux online documentation. iMonitor is a web-based replacement for several of the console-based management utilities used with previous versions of NetWare, including DSBrowse, DSTrace, and DSDiag. Because the eDirectory processes discussed previously run on each eDirectory server, iMonitor provides a server-level view of eDirectory health as opposed to a tree-level view. You can view the health of processes running only on the server from which you are running iMonitor. To view another server, launch iMonitor from that server. Prior to using DSTrace from iMonitor, you must configure the utility and specify the activity that you want to monitor. This is accomplished from the Trace Configuration page, shown in Figure B.1. Figure B.1. Trace Configuration page in iMonitor. 
When you go into Trace Configuration, you will see four new links in the left navigation frame: Trace Configuration This is the default view you will see when entering the Trace Configuration page. From this page, you can define the server-based eDirectory events and processes that you want to trace. The following configuration options are available from this page: Trace On/Off Enables/disables DSTrace monitoring. When DSTrace is enabled, you will see a Trace button (big lightning bolt) in iMonitor's header frame that you can use to view the active trace (see Figure B.2). Figure B.2. Active DSTrace view in iMonitor. 
NOTE DSTrace can increase CPU utilization significantly and reduce performance, so you should trace only when you are actively looking for something, and not as a standard practice.
Update Applies new configuration options to an existing trace. Trace Line Prefixes These options let you specify what type of descriptive information to include with each trace line. These prefixes allow you to identify event sequence, group related messages together, and determine how long ago a problem occurred. This can be critical when analyzing DSTrace data, particularly historical trace data. DSTrace Options Specifies the eDirectory activities that you want to trace for this particular eDirectory server. In order to control the amount of data that you will have to sift through in DSTrace, it's best to restrict tracing to only those specific events that are of interest instead of tracing everything. Table B.1 provides a brief description of many of the common trace options. Table B.1. Common DSTrace OptionsOPTION NAME | OPTION TAG | DESCRIPTION |
|---|
Allocated Memory | ALOC | Trace messages related to allocation of memory for eDirectory processes. | Audit | AUMN | Trace messages related to the eDirectory audit process. | Audit NCP | AUNC | Trace Audit NCP (NetWare Core Protocol) events. | Audit Skulk | AUSK | Trace audit messages related to the replica sync process. | Authentication | AUTH | Trace messages related to eDirectory authentication events. | Backlinker | BLNK | Trace messages related to the Backlink process. | Buffers | ABUF | Trace messages related to allocation of inbound and outbound packet buffers related to eDirectory requests. | Change Cache | CHNG | Trace messages related to the changing of the eDirectory memory cache. | Client Buffers | CBUF | Events related to memory buffers maintained for client connections. | Collisions | COLL | Trace messages related to the receipt of duplicate update packets. These duplicate packets usually occur on very busy networks. | DirXML | DMXL | Trace messages related to Identity Manager (DirXML). | DirXML Drivers | DVRS | Trace messages related to driver operations within Identity Manager (DirXML). | Distributed References | DRLK | Trace messages related to Distributed Reference Link operations. | DNS | DNSV | Trace messages related to Domain Name Service requests. | DS Agent | AREQ | Trace messages related to general eDirectory agent activities on this server. | Emulated Bindery | BEMU | Trace messages related to Bindery Emulation. | Fragmented Requests | FRAG | Trace messages related to the packet fragmenter that breaks up eDirectory messages for transmission in multiple packets. | HTTP Stack | HTTP | Trace messages related to the HTTP stack used by eDirectory. | Inbound Synchronization | SYNC | Trace messages related to incoming eDirectory synchronization requests. | Initialization | INIT | Trace messages related to the opening of the local eDirectory database. | Inspector | INSP | Messages related to the Inspector process. Inspector is part of the Janitor that verifies the structural integrity of the eDirectory database. | Janitor | JNtr | Trace Janitor messages. The Janitor cleans up eDirectory by removing objects that are no longer needed. | LDAP | LDAP | Trace messages related to LDAP communications. | LDAP Stack | LSTK | Trace messages related to the memory stack associated with LDAP operations. | Limber | LMBR | Trace Limber messages. The Limber monitors connectivity between all replicas. | Locking | LOCK | Trace messages related to manipulation of the local eDirectory database locks. | Lost Entry | LOST | Trace messages related to obituaries, eDirectory attributes, and stream files. | Move Object | MOVE | Trace messages related to eDirectory object move operations. | NCP Engine | NCPE | Trace messages related to the NCP engine. | Obituaries | OBIT | Trace messages related to the eDirectory obituary, or object deletion, process. | Outbound Synchronization | SKLK | Trace messages related to background replica synchronization. | Partition | PART | Trace partition operations and messages. | Purge | PURG | Trace replica purger messages. | Resolve Name | RSLV | Trace messages related to eDirectory name resolution when traversing the eDirectory tree. | SAP | SADV | Trace messages related to the SAP protocol. | Schema | SCMA | Trace schema modification and synchronization messages. | Server Packets | SPKT | Trace messages related to server packets. | Streams | STRM | Trace messages related to stream attributes in eDirectory. | Thread Scheduling | ThrD | Trace messages related to the management of processor threads used with eDirectory. | Time Vectors | TVEC | Trace messages related to transitive vectors, which describe how caught up the replica is in the synchronization process. | Wanman | WANM | Trace messages related to WAN Traffic Manager. |
Event Configuration This link provides a view similar to Trace Configuration, but it lets you select eDirectory events that you want to trace. eDirectory events include such things as adding/deleting objects, modifying attributes, and changing a password. The same configuration options described for Trace Configuration are available for Event Configuration, except that instead of listing DSTrace options, DS Events are listed. Trace History From this page you can view a list of previous traces. A timestamp indicating the period of time during which the trace was gathered identifies each trace. Trace Triggers This page lists some common DS Agent activities and identifies the DSTrace options that must be selected in order to trace that type of DS Agent activity. Selecting trigger options and clicking Submit will add those DSTrace options to the list of active DSTrace options, if they are not already active.
Although the web-based DSTrace utility within iManager is the recommended method of monitoring eDirectory activity, there is also a command-line version of this utility called ndstrace. This utility is shown in Figure B.3. Figure B.3. The ndstrace console-based utility. 
After starting the ndstrace utility, you are presented with an NDSTrace: prompt. From this prompt, ndstrace can be configured to display eDirectory events as they are occurring on the server. Some of the commonly monitored events are described in Table B.1. With the ndstrace utility, events are configured using the event tag as listed in the second column of Table B.1. To enable or disable specific events within ndstrace, execute the following command from the utility command prompt: ndstrace +/-[Option Tag]
Multiple options can also be specified on the ndstrace command line. For example, to enable Inbound Synchronization and disable Obituary messages, execute the following command: ndstrace +SYNC -OBIT
For more information on using ndstrace, enter help ndstrace from the ndstrace command prompt, or see the man page for ndstrace. |
