Preparing Remote Projects for Debugging

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.

Windows:

Micro Focus ViewNow X is provided as part of Visual COBOL. See Installing X Windows on Windows in the Installation section. Find the ViewNow X documentation on the Micro Focus SupportLine dropdown menu.

UNIX:
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:

  1. Click Window > Preferences > Micro Focus > Debug.
  2. Type the display details in the Default X Server (DISPLAY) field.

    The default Default X Server (DISPLAY) value is clientMachineName:0.0.

  3. Optionally, in the Default cobdebugremote port field, you can modify the default (8000) port number.
  4. Optionally, modify any of the remaining settings.
  5. Click Apply and Close.