You use a COBOL Application debug configuration to debug projects developed on a remote UNIX machine. Before you can debug the remote application, you need to have an X window implementation installed and running, so that the output of a remote application running on a UNIX machine can be viewed on your local machine. You do not need X window for other debug configuration types.
Ensure the local X11 server can receive connections from the remote machine. You can do this using the
xhost + command or by enabling SSH port forwarding. Alternatively, enable TCP/IP connections for X11 by setting a value in a configuration file in a manner appropriate to your operating system. For example:
- Red Hat: run the
gdmsetup utility and deselect
Deny TCP connections to Xserver in the Security tab (this configures
DisallowTCP=false in /etc/gdm/custom.conf)
- SUSE: set DISPLAYMANAGER_XSERVER_TCP_PORT_6000_OPEN="yes" in
/etc/sysconfig/displaymanager
Specify the details about the display that the X11 server tries to contact in the IDE preferences as follows:
- Click
Window > Preferences > Micro Focus > Debug.
- Type the display details in the
Default X Server (DISPLAY) field.
The default
Default X Server (DISPLAY) value is
clientMachineName:0.0.
Remote UNIX machines running behind a firewall
If the remote machine is running behind a firewall but is accessible via SSH, you need to use a proxy server to handle traffic to the remote machine.
Visual COBOL supports the SOCKS5 internet protocol. This enables you to route network traffic through SSH to the remote machine. To use SOCKS with a proxy server perform the following steps:
- Click
Window > Preferences > General > Network Connections.
- In the
Active Provider list, select
Manual.
- In the
Proxy entries table, click the
SOCKS row.
- Click
Edit.
This opens the
Edit Proxy Entry dialog box for the SOCKS schema.
- In the
Host field, type the
host_name where your proxy server is running.
- In the
Port field, type the
port_number used by your chosen proxy client.
If your proxy server is configured to request authentication you need to specify the details:
- Check
Requires Authentication.
- Type the
username in the
User field.
- Type the
password in the
Password field.
- Click
OK.
If you are going to use the COBOL Application debug configuration you also need to use SSH port forwarding to route X Server display to the local machine. This means you need to specify the remote machine port (rather than the local machine port) when specifying the display in the preferences:
- Click
Window > Preferences > Micro Focus > Debug.
- Type the display details in the
Default X Server (DISPLAY) field - for example localhost:10.0.
The value following localhost comes from
/etc/ssh/sshd_config - X11DisplayOffset and is incremented for each additional user.
- Click
OK.
See
To create a connection to a remote UNIX host running behind a firewall for details of how to use SOCKS with PuTTY as the proxy server.
