Connection Tracing

All Microsoft® SNA Server shipping SNALinks provide connection tracing at their lowest level. Examples of this information are:

• Parameter blocks passed to/received from the CCB2 interface by the 802.2 DLC SNALink.
• Frames sent/received on the line by the X.25 and SDLC SNALinks.
• Command frames sent to/received from the controller by the DFT SNALink.

It is recommended that IHVs also provide this type of tracing to aid troubleshooting when the SNALink is in operation at remote customer sites.

Because the lowest level of the SNALink can vary greatly, according to both the type of the link being serviced and the functionality provided by driver software being used, it is not feasible for SNA Server to provide a tracing interface that will format raw data passed to/from the adapter.

The Connection Tracing interface provided for IHV use requires the SNALink to provide a preformatted buffer of ASCII text that will be written to a trace file maintained by SNA Server. This allows the IHV SNALink to trace to the same trace file as other SNALinks but leaves SNA Server in control of access to the file.