Using Skype for Business Server 2015 Logging Tool

Applies to: Skype for Business 2015

An important part of the process of developing a UCMA 5.0 application is the ability to trace the protocol stack. To do this, you will enable tracing. By viewing the contents of the protocol stack during or after the execution of your code, you can familiarize yourself with the topology of UCMA 5.0.

Setting up a protocol trace

When you install the UCMA 5.0 SDK, the Skype for Business Server 2015 Logging Tool (OCSLogger.exe) is located in the SDK\Core\Tracing folder in the UCMA 5.0 SDK installation directory. Launching OCSLogger.exe opens the window shown in the following figure. Before starting a trace, the user should do the following:

• Select a trace provider

  The default choices are Collaboration, S4, SpeechComponent, and SpeechVxmlComponent. You can start a trace for one or more of the listed components.

• Specify a log file folder

  When UCMA 5.0 SDK is installed it creates a Tracing folder under the %WinDir% directory. Skype for Business Server 2015 Logging Tool writes log files to this directory. If you want log files written to a different direction, click the Browse button and select or create the folder in which log files are written.

• Define the tracing level

  By clicking the appropriate tracing Level radio button, the user can filter the kinds of messages that will be recorded in the log file. Checking the Errors radio button causes only error messages to be recorded to the log file. Each radio button below the Errors button causes more messages to be recorded to the log file.

Account permissions

To start a protocol trace you must be a member of the Administrators group on the computer running the protocol trace.

Viewing a protocol trace

You can have a trace running for each of the two trace provider components.

Skype for Business Server 2015 Logging Tool produces .ETL files as its output. By default, these files are written to the %WINDIR%\Tracing directory. The S4.etl file in this directory will contain error, warning, and protocol messages.

The Skype for Business Server 2015 Logging Tool displays a main dialog and four dialogs available through the Advanced Options menu item. These are discussed in detail in the following sections.

Main dialog

The Skype for Business Server 2015 Logging Tool menu bar consists of the following menu items.

The remainder of the main dialog consists of panes for Logging Options and Global Options, as well as two text boxes that specify the paths to the log file folder and format file folder.

Logging options

The Components pane displays four components: Collaboration, S4, SpeechComponent, and SpeechVxmlComponent. Check one or more to enable logging the selected components.

The Level pane allows you to specify the types of messages that are recorded in the log file. The levels are arranged from most restrictive (Fatal Errors) at the top to least restrictive (All) at the bottom. The levels are cumulative, with each level including messages of that type, in addition to messages from all previous levels (that is, levels higher in the list of radio buttons). For example, clicking the Warnings level causes all warning messages to be logged, in addition to all error messages and fatal error messages.

The Flags pane enables you to set the types of messages that are logged. Any combination of the flags shown in the following table can be chosen.

Global options

The Log File Options pane contains the Type pane and the Maximum Size text box, which determine how new log records are inserted into the log file and its size. Choose Circular to indicate that when a log file reaches its maximum size, new records are to be placed at the beginning. Choose Sequential to indicate that new records should be placed at the end of the log file. Choose New File to start a new log file.

The Real Time Options pane contains a check box for Enabled. If Enabled is checked, a check box for Display only can be selected.

The Filter Options pane enables a user to restrict logging to specified URIs or fully-qualified domain names (FQDN), each of which requires input validation. When filtering is used, the log files will contain information only from the URIs or FQDNs listed in the URI and FQDN text boxes. Filtering can be applied to two user URIs, or two machine FQDNs (or IP addresses), or one URI and one FQDN. Click Clear Filters to clear the contents of the URI and FQDN text boxes.

The Log File Folder text box specifies the folder in which to write log files. By default this is %WinDir%\Tracing\.

Formatting tab

The Formatting tab of the Advanced Options dialog box enables the user to determine the information that appears in log records, and how the information is formatted.

The Log File Prefix text box is used for formatting events that are written to log files. The Real Time Prefix text box is used for formatting events to the real-time tracing window.

The Display times in UTC check box determines whether times in log records are displayed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) (checked), or system time (unchecked).

The Format file search path text box specifies a semicolon-separated list of folder paths. OCSLogger searches for .TMF files in these paths if it is unable to find format information for a log record in the default.tmx file that is included with OCSLogger. This functionality is used primarily to support patching that results in new format information for some components, where that information is not present in default.tmx.

The variables used in log file formatting are shown in the following table.

The numeric variables (%n) can be followed by a printf-style format specifier. For example, %3!04X! displays the thread ID as a four-digit hexadecimal number, %7!08X! displays the thread ID as an eight-digit hexadecimal number, and %9!D! displays the CPU number as an integer. The %2, %4, and %5 variables represent string quantities, so if a format specifier is used, it must be one pertaining to strings, such as !s!.

After setting logging prefixes and the time to use in this dialog box, click OK to save your changes, or Cancel to discard them. If you click Apply, you can open another Advanced Option page on which to make changes. Clicking Cancel undoes any changes you have made since you clicked Apply.

Buffering tab

The Buffering tab of the Advanced Options dialog box enables the user to set the buffer size, minimum and maximum number of buffers, and the Real time display flush timer, which specifies how often to flush the buffer in real-time logging. The default values are 64 KB for the buffer size, 20 and 40, respectively, for the minimum and maximum numbers of buffers, and 10 seconds for Real Time Flush timer.

After setting the buffer size and the minimum and maximum numbers of buffers, and the timer, click OK to save your changes, or Cancel to discard them. If you click Apply, you can open another Advanced Option page on which to make changes. Clicking Cancel undoes any changes you have made since you clicked Apply.

Clock Resolution tab

The Clock Resolution tab of the Advanced Options dialog box enables the user to specify the resolution of time stamps in log records. The choices are 10 milliseconds (the lowest resolution), 100 nanoseconds, or CPU frequency (the highest resolution).

After setting the clock resolution in this dialog box, click OK to save your changes, or Cancel to discard them. If you click Apply, you can open another Advanced Option page on which to make changes. Clicking Cancel undoes any changes you have made since you clicked Apply.

Additional Components tab

The Additional Components tab of the Advanced Options dialog box enables the user to specify additional components on which to log events. Enter the path for the component in the upper text box. Enter the name of the executable in the lower text box. Multiple paths and multiple executable files can be entered.

After entering the paths and executable files in this dialog box, click OK to save your changes, or Cancel to discard them. If you click Apply, you can open another Advanced Option page on which to make changes. Clicking Cancel undoes any changes you have made since you clicked Apply.