First failure data capture (ffdc)

Describes how the data capture tool is used automatically by components of the product to create a first failure data capture of the products logs, traces and configuration files.

To assist in troubleshooting, several modules of the product have been enabled to create a first failure data capture in the event of failure. This facility uses the data capture tool wa_pull_info (see Data capture utility) to copy logs, traces, configuration files and the database contents (if the database is on DB2®) and create a compressed file that you can send to IBM® Software Support.

This tool is run in the following circumstances:

Jobman fails: If batchman detects that jobman has failed, it runs the script, placing the output in <TWA_home>/collector/yyyy.mm.dd/collector/JOBMAN
Batchman fails: If mailman detects that batchman has failed, it runs the script, placing the output in <TWA_home>/collector/yyyy.mm.dd/collector/BATCHMAN
Mailman fails: If mailman detects that it itself has failed with a terminal error, it runs the script, placing the output in <TWA_home>/collector/yyyy.mm.dd/collector/MAILMAN. Note that process hard stops, for example, segmentation violations, are not tracked by mailman itself.
Netman child process fails: If netman detects that one of its child processes has failed, it runs the script, placing the output in <TWA_home>/collector/yyyy.mm.dd/collector/NETMAN

Only one data collection is kept for each day. Each day a new data collection overwrites the previous day's collection.

Within each of the target output directories, the output file is stored in the /tws_info/TWS_yyyymmdd_hhmmss directory.

To perform ffdc, the wa_pull_info script is run by a script called collector.sh (.cmd). You can customize this script (located in <TWA_home>/TWS/bin ) to apply different parameters to the wa_pull_info script for any of the enabled modules (jobman, mailman, batchman and netman)