Tracing the signaling interface

You can use signaling interface trace to debug problems, even when the signaling process is in production. This section tells you how to do this.

When AIX system tracing is turned on, Blueworx Voice Response traces the entry and exit from all signaling interface subroutine calls. You can use this trace to see if an error occurs in processing a signaling interface function, or if the wrong parameters are being passed to a signaling interface subroutine.

  1. If no AIX window is open, open one by selecting an area on the screen background and selecting AIX Login.
  2. Log on to the Blueworx Voice Response AIX account.

    The system displays the User Login Menu.

  3. Type 2 and press <Enter>.

    The system displays the system prompt, usually a dollar sign ($).

  4. Blueworx Voice Response uses channel 1, start AIX tracing on trace channel 1 with the following command:

    trace -a -1

    If you are interested in only the signaling interface trace, tell AIX to record only Blueworx Voice Response signaling interface trace events, as follows:

    trace -a -1 -j"456,459"

    See the Problem Determination information for other ways you can start and stop Blueworx Voice Response trace.

  5. Do whatever your need to do to recreate the custom server problem you are trying to solve.
  6. Use the following command to stop AIX tracing on channel 1 (used by Blueworx Voice Response) and write the output to file.

    trcstop -1

    AIX writes the binary output to /var/adm/ras/tracfile.1.

  7. Use the following command to format the trace output and write it to the file sl.trace.
    print_trace > sl.trace
    Note: If you just want a quick breakdown of the signaling interface functions you are calling, use the following command to format the trace output, filter the entries for signaling interface subroutine calls and write them to the file sl.trace:
    print_trace | grep SIGLIB > sl.trace

    This method shows the times of entry and exit from signaling interface subroutines, but does not show the values of parameters passed to the signaling interface.

  8. Use the following command to view the trace:

    view sl.trace

    For an explanation of the entries in the trace file, see Interpreting a signaling process trace.