Debug deployed BW6 application on specific domain

31 Mar, 2017 | 2 minutes read

Debugging is a very helpful process to identify why some issue/error happened. We need to get detailed messages that can help us trace through to the cause of an issue. In some software, we can adjust logging levels to capture different types of messages for different loggers.

Starting in Eclipse V3.0 and further releases developers chose Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) to replace the rickety Eclipse plug-in technology found in earlier versions.

Architecture changes made in TIBCO BusinessWorks 6 is that it is OSGi-based. The OSGi console helps us monitor the application during deployment and gives us a clear picture of what is happening with the deployed application.

Problem

During our investigation of certain issues that may appear on BW6 applications, we tried to debug them directly on the domain/app node where the application is deployed.

Implementation

Here is the process that we follow to enable/disable debugging in one BW6 application with OSGi Console on a UNIX machine.

  1. Log in with your UNIX credentials and sudo as TIBCO to the machine where the application is deployed

Ex: localhost

  1. Navigate to the BW6 bin folder

Ex: [user@localhost bin]$ cd /opt/tibco/bw6/bw/6.3/bin/

  1. Enter to the BusinessWorks Administration Console

Ex: [user@localhost bin]$ ./bwadmin –propFile /opt/tibco/config/bw6/test/bwadmin/bwadmin.tra

  1. Enter in the domain

Ex: bwadmin[admin]> cd TESTDOMAIN

  1. Enter in the appspace where application is deployed

Ex: bwadmin[admin@TESTDOMAIN]> cd TESTDOMAIN-AppSpace-TEST

  1. Enabling the OSGi Console

Ex: bwadmin[admin@TESTDOMAIN/TESTDOMAIN-AppSpace-TEST]> enableconsole -n TESTDOMAIN-AppNode-TEST localhost 9060

NOTE: Once the console is enabled you should see the following message “TIBCO-BW-ADMIN-CLI-300304: Console enabled for AppNode [TESTDOMAIN-AppNode-TEST] in Domain [TESTDOMAIN].”

  1. Use the telnet command to access the OSGi console:

Ex: [user@localhost]$  telnet localhost 9060

admin@TESTDOMAIN-AppNode-TEST> help
bw:dsr
bw:laes
bw:lais
bw:lapi
bw:lapic
bw:las
bw:lat
bw:le
bw:lec
bw:lendpoints
bw:les
bw:lfpic
bw:lpes
bw:lpis
bw:lr
bw:lrhandlers
bw:lrproxies
bw:lsel
bw:ltpic
bw:startaesc
bw:startpesc
bw:startpisc
bw:stopaesc
bw:stoppesc
bw:stoppisc
bwadmin:install
bwadmin:restart
bwadmin:shutdown
bwadmin:uninstall
bwadmin:version

On the following link: https://docs.tibco.com/pub/activematrix_businessworks/6.2.2/doc/html/GUID-4AC8019F-701F-48BD-BC44-2A293E4C3796.html, you can find a description for all commands and what kind of information you can get for the application/appnode.

Use the disconnect command to gracefully quit the telnet session, and leave the OSGi port open for reentry. Use the telnet stop command to close the connection after the debugging session is complete.