Gathering information to troubleshoot Zowe Application Framework

Gather the following information to troubleshoot Zowe™ Application Framework issues:

• z/OS release level
• Zowe version and release level
• Zowe application configuration
• Zowe Application Server Ports
• Log output from the Zowe Application Server
• Error message codes
• JavaScript console output (Web Developer toolkit accessible by pressing F12)
• Screen captures (if applicable)
• Other relevant information (such as the version of Node.js that is running on the Zowe Application Server and the browser and browser version)

z/OS release level

To find the z/OS release level, issue the following command in SDSF:

/D IPLINFO

Check the output for the release level, for example:

RELEASE z/OS 02.02.00

Zowe version and release level

cd <zowe-installation-directory>

cat manifest.json

Output:

Displays zowe version

{

"name": "Zowe",

"version": "1.2.0",

"description": "Zowe is an open source project created to host technologies that benefit the Z platform from all members of the Z community (Integrated Software Vendors, System Integrators and z/OS consumers). Zowe, like Mac or Windows, comes with a set of APIs and OS capabilities that applications build on and also includes some applications out of the box. Zowe offers modern interfaces to interact with z/OS and allows you to work with z/OS in a way that is similar to what you experience on cloud platforms today. You can use these interfaces as delivered or through plug-ins and extensions that are created by clients or third-party vendors.",

"license": "EPL-2.0",

"homepage": "https://zowe.org",

"build": {

"branch": "master",

"number": 685,

"commitHash": "63efa85df629db474197ec8481db50021e8fdd65",

"timestamp": "1556733977010"

}

}

Zowe application configuration

Configuration file helps customize the Zowe app server, and is important to look at while you troubleshoot.

# navigate to zowe installation folder

cd <zowe-installation-folder>

# navigate to server configuration folder

cd zlux-app-server/deploy/instance/ZLUX/serverConfig

# display config

cat zluxserver.json

Read more about the Zowe app server configuration in the Zowe User Guide.

Zowe Application Server ports

# navigate to zowe installation folder

cd <zowe-installation-folder>

# navigate to install log directory

cd install_log

# list file by most recent first

ls -lt

# pick latest file

cat 2019-05-02-17-13-09.log | grep ZOWE_ZLUX_SERVER_HTTPS_PORT

cat 2019-05-02-17-13-09.log | grep ZOWE_ZSS_SERVER_PORT

Log output from the Zowe Application Server

There are two major components of Zowe application server: ZLUX and ZSS. They log to different files.

The default location for logs for both zlux and zss is folder zlux-app-server/log. You can customize the log location by using the environment variable.

env | grep ZLUX_NODE_LOG_DIR

env | grep ZSS_LOG_DIR

Read more about controlling the log location here.

# navigate to zowe installation folder

cd <zowe-installation-folder>

# navigate to logs default location or custom location as described above

cd zlux-app-server/log

# custom log location can be found using environment variable

# list file by most recent first

ls -lt

Output:

List of files by most recent timestamp for both nodeServer as well ZSS.

nodeServer-<yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm>.log

zssServer-<yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm>.log

Error message codes

It is advisable to look into log files for capturing error codes.

Javascript console output

Web Developer toolkit is accessible by pressing F12.

Read more about it here.

Screen captures

If possible, add a screen capture of the issue.

Other relevant information

Node.js – v6.14.4 minimum for z/OS, elsewhere v6, v8, and v10 work well.

node -v

npm – v6.4 minimum

npm -v

Java – v8 minimum

java -version