Operating the Natural Development Server

This document describes how to operate a Natural Development Server in a SMARTS on z/VSE environment.

The following topics are covered:

Starting the Natural Development Server

A prerequisite is a running SMARTS address space that is configured to run the Natural Development Server (see Development Server Installation).

Start the Natural Development Server with the SMARTS console command 

<msg-id> NATRDEVS <server-id>

- where

msg-id is the message identifier assigned to the SMARTS partition,

server-id is the name of your Natural Development Server.

Example: 

141 NATRDEVS NDVS1

Note:
If you qualify the Natural Development Server datasets by server-id, the server ID is restricted to a maximum length of 6 characters.

Alternatively, you can automatically start Natural Development Servers during SMARTS initialization by using the SMARTS SYSPARM parameter STARTUPPGM. In the SMARTS SYSPARM file specify: 

STARTUPPGM='NATRDEVS <server-id>'

Example:

STARTUPPGM='NATRDEVS NDVS1'

Terminating the Natural Development Server

The Natural Development Server can be terminated from within the Monitor Client NATMOPI, see Monitor Commands.

Monitoring the Natural Development Server

To enable the administrator to monitor the status of the Natural Development Server, a monitor task is provided which is initialized automatically at server startup. Using the monitor commands described below, the administrator can control the server activities, cancel particular user sessions, terminate the entire server, etc.

The following topics are covered below:

Monitor Communication

To communicate with the monitor, you can use the monitor client NATMOPI; see Monitor Client NATMOPI. Or you can use the HTML Monitor Client that supports standard web browser; see HTML Monitor Client.

Monitor Commands

The Natural Development Server supports the following monitor commands:

Monitor Command Action
ping Verifies whether the server is active. The server responds and sends the string 
I'm still up
terminate Terminates the server.
abort Terminates the server immediately without releasing any resources.
set configvariable value With the set command, you can modify server configuration settings. For example, to modify TRACE_LEVEL: 
set TRACE_LEVEL 0x00000012
list sessions Returns a list of active Natural sessions within the server. For each session, the server returns information about the user who owns the session, the session initialization time, the last activity time and an internal session identifier (session-id).
cancel session session-id Cancels a specific Natural session within the Natural Development Server. To obtain the session ID, use the monitor command list sessions.
help Returns help information about the monitor commands supported.

Runtime Trace Facility

For debugging purposes, the server code has a built-in trace facility which can be switched on, if desired.

The following topics are covered below:

Trace Medium

A remote development server writes its runtime trace to the logical system file SYSOUT of the FSIO task.

Trace Configuration

The trace is configured by a trace level which defines the details of the trace. Once a trace is switched on, it can be restricted to particular clients or client requests by specifying a trace filter, see also NDV configuration parameter TRACE_FILTER.

Every Natural session is provided with a 32-bit trace status word (TSW) which defines the trace level for this session. The value of the TSW is set in the NDV configuration parameter TRACE_LEVEL. A value of zero means that the trace is switched off.

Trace Level

Each bit of the TSW is responsible for certain trace information. Starting with the rightmost bit:

Bit 31 Trace main events (server initialization/termination, client request/result).
Bit 30 Detailed functions (session allocation, rollin/rollout calls, detailed request processing).
Bit 29 Dump internal storage areas.
Bit 28 Session directory access.
Bit 27 Dump request/reply buffer EBCDIC.
Bit 26 Dump request/reply buffer ASCII.
Bit 25 Dump I/O buffer.
Bit 24 Free.
Bit 23 Request processing main events.
Bit 22 Request processing detailed functions.
Bit 21 Remote debugger main events.
Bit 20 Remote debugger detailed functions.
Bit 19-16 Free.
Bit 15 Trace error situations only.
Bit 14 Apply trace filter definitions.
Bit 13 Trace start and termination of the server only.
Bit 12 Trace start and termination of the client sessions only. Even if bit 13 is set.
Bit 11-08 Free.
Bit 07-01 Free.
Bit 00 Reserved for trace-level extension.

Trace Filter

It is possible to restrict the trace by a logical filter in order to reduce the volume of the server trace output.

  • The filter can be set with the configuration parameter TRACE_FILTER.

  • The filter may consist of multiple keyword=filtervalue assignments separated by spaces.

  • To activate the filter definition, the trace bit 14 in the trace status word (see Trace Level) must be set.

The filter keyword is:

Client Filters the trace output by specific clients.

The following rules apply:

  • If a keyword is defined multiple times, the values are cumulated.

  • The value must be enclosed in braces and can be a list of filter values separated by spaces.

  • The values are not case sensitive.

  • Asterisk notation is possible.

Example:

TRACE_FILTER="Client=(KSP P*)"

Each request of the user ID KSP and each request of the user IDs starting with a P are traced.