Setting up and using auxiliary trace data sets

This section describes the auxiliary trace data sets controlled by CICS®.

Several types of tracing are available in CICS to help you with problem determination, and these are described in the CICS Problem Determination Guide. Among the various types of trace, the CICS tracing handled by the CICS trace domain allows you to control the amount of tracing that is done, and also to choose from any of three destinations for the trace data. Any combination of these three destinations can be active at any time:

  1. The internal trace table, in main storage above the 16MB line in the CICS address space.
  2. The auxiliary trace data sets, defined as BSAM data sets on disk or tape.
  3. The MVS™ generalized trace facility (GTF) data sets.

For information about GTF, see the OS/390 MVS Diagnosis: Tools and Service Aids manual. For information about using CICS tracing for problem determination, see the CICS Problem Determination Guide.

If you decide to use auxiliary trace, you must define one or two sequential data sets, on either disk or tape. If you specify automatic switching for your auxiliary trace data sets, define two data sets. If you specify autoswitch for auxiliary trace, and define only one data set, auxiliary trace is stopped and CICS takes a dump.

The DD names of the auxiliary trace data sets are defined by CICS as DFHAUXT and DFHBUXT. If you define a single data set only, its DD name must be DFHAUXT. You can allocate and catalog the auxiliary trace data sets before starting CICS.

If you use tape for recording auxiliary trace output, use unlabeled tape. Using standard-labeled tape, whether on a single tape drive or on two tape drives, stops you processing the contents of any of the volumes with the DFHTU640 utility until after the CICS step has been completed. If you use standard-labeled tape, make sure all the output produced in the CICS run fits on the one (or two) volumes mounted.

You cannot catalog data sets that are on unlabeled tapes.

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