Enabling and Disabling the Debug Mode

Use

Using the SAP MC, you can enable the debug mode of the Virtual Machine of the server process on the fly without needing to restart it. When you enable debugging, a debug port on the application server opens where you can connect your SAP Net Weaver Developer Studio debugger and debug your applications. By default, the debugging mode is not active.

Procedure

Enabling the debug mode

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       1.      In the navigation pane, expand the tree structure of the AS Java node and choose Process Table.

       2.      In the result pane, choose the server process on which you want to open a debug port, and from the context menu, choose Start Debug Session.

       3.      In the Start Debug? dialog box, choose OK to enable the debug mode with the default settings.

       4.      In the Logon Data dialog box, enter the SAP system administrator credentials, and choose OK.

       5.      Optional: To change the default settings of the debug mode, in the Start Debug? dialog box, choose Expert Mode. Choose the relevant options:

○       Suspend - to suspend all visible threads to the debugging User Interface (UI)

We recommend that you use the Suspend option only in combination with Code Isolation. If you use the Suspend option without Code Isolation, the debugger suspends all threads immediately, which affects the entire Java instance.

○       Code Isolation - to activate the code isolation for the AS Java. Only the threads of the application you want to debug are subject to debugging.

○       Load Isolation – to enable load isolation, and make sure that only your request reaches the server process. Thus you are able to debug a heavy-loaded application. Use this option if there are two or more server processes in the system, and for example, you want to set a breakpoint in the code and trigger it via an HTTP request.

When you set the Load Isolation, other user requests are not dispatched to the server process. The server process is load isolated, and removed from all load balancing lists. User requests cannot reach the process via any protocol (HTTP, P4, Telnet, and so on).

If you enable the load isolation for a server process which is the only one in the instance, the server process becomes unreachable for user requests and you will not be able to deploy the application you want to debug. The color of the jstart process in the SAP MC perspective turns yellow, because the instance is considered as not operational.

○       Session Migration - to migrate all moveable browser sessions to other server processes. For example, activate session migration if you want to put the browser sessions on another host and be able to concentrate on the browser session created during the debug session.

We recommend that you use the default settings.

       6.      Choose the Access Points node, and in the result pane check if the debug port is open. When the port is not open, the Active state of the port in the result pane is No.

       7.      Choose the Process Table node, and in the result pane, check if the Debug state of the server process indicates that the debug mode is switched on and the debug entry is displayed.

Disabling the debug mode

To disable the debug mode that is to close the debug port on the server process, proceed as follows:

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       1.      In the navigation pane, choose Process Table.

       2.      Select the relevant server process, and from the context menu choose Stop Debug Session.

       3.      In the Stop Debug Session dialog box, choose the debug entry on which you want to disable the debug mode. The debug entry consists of <debug ID>(<OS user>@<host>-server<n>)

where:

○       <debug ID> is the number automatically generated on the server side when debug mode is enabled.

○       <OS user> is the user of the operation system who has enabled the debug mode.

○       <host> is the host of the server process.

○       server<n> is the server process.

For example, 896010077(peter@sofD60161564A-server0)

If the debug mode you want to disable has been enabled from another location, and not from the Developer Studio you are currently using, in the Stop Debug Session dialog box enter the debug ID number or <OS user>@<host>-server<n>.

You can use the same procedure to stop a debug session that was started for an application server.