Dumps

You can configure Enterprise Server to create system and transactional dumps that help you identify the source of a problem and the type of issue. You can view the contents of most dump files in Enterprise Server, and you can use the dump output files to help Customer Care help you to resolve the issue encountered.

Types of Enterprise Server dumps

You can generate the following types of dumps from Enterprise Server

System dump: Created when the failure is due to a problem originating with Enterprise Server itself.
Transaction dump: Created when the failure is due to a problem originating in a program running on the enterprise server instance.
Core dump: This type of dump file is created when either a system or transaction failure occurs, and can be used to debug the application. See To configure an enterprise server to produce a core dump for details.
casdump: You can create a dump file externally using the casdump command. Use this when a dump cannot be obtained normally; for example, when the enterprise server instance is not responding and shared memory is locked. See casdump for details.

Dump file datasets

For system and transaction dumps, you have the option in Enterprise Server to write dump output to either an A or a B dataset file. The default is A, but you can toggle between the two.

Output files

With the exception of core dump output, dump output files are written to the Enterprise Server system directory, and take the following form:

casdumpa.rec: Output file for the A dataset.
casdumpb.rec: Output file for the B dataset.
casdumx.rec: Output file for the casdump /d external command.

For core dump files, you specify the filename and directory when you configure your enterprise server instance to create core dumps. See To configure an enterprise server instance to produce a core dump for details.