DESCRIPTION
Quick tips for using the traceSBC command from ASBCE command line interface.
PRODUCTS
Session Manager (SM)
APPLICABLE SOFTWARE RELEASES
7.x, 8.x, 10.x
RELATED KEYWORDS
traceSM
TIPS
Tribute to Andrew Prokop. An older article but still a good one.
https://andrewjprokop.wordpress.com/2014/06/02/a-necessary-guide-to-the-avaya-tracesm-utility/
traceSM is an interactive perl script that allows an administrator to capture, view, and save call processing activity on a Session Manager.
To run traceSM you need to SSH into an active Session Manager.
By default, only one traceSM can be running on a Session Manager at any given time. To invoke multiple instances, it must be run with the -m option. However, Avaya advises against running multiple instance of traceSM in a production environment as it may cause performance problems.
traceSM -m
traceSM should be accessible through the default path, but in case you ever need to find it, look under /opt/Avaya/contrib/bin. Remember, Linux is case sensitive. It's traceSM and never tracesm or Tracesm.
| <UP>,<DOWN> | Select a SIP/SM packet. Or scroll a large SIP packet when displaying the details |
| <HOME> | Go to the first packet |
| <END> | Go to the last packet. If the cursor is in the last packet while capturing packets, the screen will update with new arriving packets |
| <PGUP>,<PGDN> | Page Up and Page Down |
| <LEFT>,<RIGHT> | Move between different columns (IPs) when they don't fit in the screen |
| <ENTER> | Display the SIP/SM details. The SIP URI is highlighted in red, the SIP fields in blue and the content (e.g: SDP, xml) in green. |
| q | Quit |
| f | Display the Filter window to view/change filters |
| w | Write the displayed (filtered) packets to a new file |
| s | Start or Stop the capture |
| c | Clear the screen |
| a | Switch between SM and SM-100 perspective |
| i | Switch between displaying Names or IPs in the column headers |
| r | Switch between displaying RTP simulation or not |
| d | Switch between SIP calls and display mode |
It's important to know that traceSM is a real-time capture tool. You cannot start traceSM and expect to see SIP packets that were sent prior to launching the tool. The capture begins when the application begins.
Also, traceSM's capture buffer is limited in size to 10,000 packets and once that limit is reached, it stops collecting and displaying packets. You will need to clear the buffer to get it moving again.
traceSM Example
The following is an example of a typical traceSM screen. Note the handy list of commands at the bottom.
Also, take note of the words SIP, PPM, and CallP. SIP and PPM are in green and CallP is in red. This indicates that traceSM is currently only capturing SIP and PPM messages. You can change which packet and message types are captured with the s command.
In the following example, only SIP packets will be captured. To capture PPM or Call Processing messages,arrow to the appropriate box and press Enter. OK will restart the capture with the new parameters.
To view the expanded contents of a packet, up or down arrow to the packet you wish to view and press Enter.
Some SIP messages are so short that they can be completely viewed on the screen while others require you to arrow down to see everything. The three dots at the bottom center of a message window will tell you if there is more to be seen.
In this example, I've selected to view the contents of an INVITE message. Notice how traceSM displays different aspects of the SIP message in different colors the Request Line is red, headers are blue, and the SDP is green.
Filters
A busy system will cause traceSM to capture and display packets faster than you can comprehend what is going on. This is where the filter command comes in handy. To create a filter, press f and select your desired options.
You can filter on everything from IP address to particular header values to specific SIP URIs or numbers. For example, to only see the packets to or from extension 1902, you would set the following filter: -u 1902
It's often useful to create filters that eliminate unnecessary information. For example, you can filter out OPTION messages (-no), registrations (-nr), subscriptions (-ns), and Session Manager's call routing logic (-na).
By default, filters are logically added as an AND. Specify -or to create either/or filters.
Specific to Avaya is the AV-Global-Session-ID header. Filtering on this header allows you to do cradle-to-grave call tracing since the SIP Call-ID will change as a session moves through B2BUA entities, but AV-Global-Session-ID will not.
Filters are cleared by entering f without any options.
The following screen shot shows you the many different filters that can be created.
By default, traceSM will display ingress and egress points by name. Use the i command to switch to display by IP address.
Use the d command to switch between displaying everything in the capture buffer to just the SIP calls. Use d to then toggle back to a full display of all captured packets.
In this example you will see three SIP calls. Two were successfully completed and one was rejected.
Earlier versions of traceSM did not allow you to capture and display PPM messages, but thankfully that has been resolved. You need to enable their capture through the s command and traceSM will include them in the display. As with SIP messages, pressing Enter on a specific entry shows you the entire PPM message.
You can also trace the actions of Session Manager itself by capturing the Call-P messages. Seeing Call-P messages can be valuable in debugging routing issues.
Saving Your Work
You can save the contents of the display buffer with the w command and clear the display buffer with the c command. Saved traces can be later accessed with traceSM or exported to view with wireshark.
Files are written to the home directory of the logged in user (cd ~ from a command shell to find them). For example, if you logged as cust, the file will be found in the /home/cust directory.
Help
If you find yourself in front of a Session Manager console screen and cannot recall all that I just tried to tell you, all you need to do is ask for help.
traceSM -h gives you the following information:
