Advanced Installation Topics

Multiple NTRACE.OS2 Instances

It's possible to install more than one instance of the trace driver. You may wish multiple copies of the driver loaded for the following needs:

simultaneous tracing on > 1 LAN adapter

more than one LAN adapter installed with NTRACE in service mode

NDIS driver debugging

Simultaneous Tracing on > 1 LAN Adapter

You need at least two NTRACE.OS2 driver's instances bound to different MAC drivers. In two OS/2 command line windows you may start tracing sessions specifying appropriate instance names with -i option of NTRACE.EXE.

This is a typical CONFIG.SYS sample demonstrating a simultaneous tracing setup:

REM *** MAC Drivers ***
DEVICE=C:\IBMCOM\MACS\IBMFE.OS2
DEVICE=C:\IBMCOM\MACS\IBMTRP.OS2

REM *** Network Trace Drivers ***
DEVICE=C:\IBMCOM\PROTOCOL\NTRACE.OS2 TRACEEN$
DEVICE=C:\IBMCOM\PROTOCOL\NTRACE.OS2 TRACETR$

Providing that PROTOCOL.INI contains the following sections

[ntraceen_nif]

   DriverName = TRACEEN$
   Bindings = IBMFEEO2_nif
   MaxBufSegments = 32
   RejectFrames = 21

[ntracetr_nif]

   DriverName = TRACETR$
   Bindings = IBMTRP_nif
   MaxBufSegments = 32
   RejectFrames = 5

This installation allows two copies of NTRACE.EXE to be launched at one time:

ntrace -iTRACEEN$

and

ntrace -iTRACETR$

NDIS Driver Debugging

Tracing may be considered the primary tool in NDIS driver testing, verification, debuging or troubleshooting. For MAC drivers the regular installation of the NTRACE.OS2 does it all. For protocol drivers, a slightly different approach is needed.

Installing one NTRACE.OS2 driver before the protocol driver under consideration and another one after it, you can create a completely controllable environment. The first NTRACE driver may trace the input to the protocol driver and filter it according to your test plan. The second NTRACE driver may trace the protocol driver output (strictly speaking, protocols are filters on a stream of frames, so there is no output, just another insertion point for frame stream probes).

Having two traces taken at two points before and after the protocol insertion point, one can track the protocol consuming specific frames.

This is a typical CONFIG.SYS sample demonstrating a protocol driver debugging setup:

REM *** MAC Drivers ***
DEVICE=C:\IBMCOM\MACS\IBMFE.OS2
DEVICE=C:\IBMCOM\MACS\IBMTRP.OS2

REM *** Network Trace Driver 1 ***
DEVICE=C:\IBMCOM\PROTOCOL\NTRACE.OS2 TRACEOU$

REM *** A Protocol Driver ***
DEVICE=C:\IBMCOM\PROTOCOL\NEWPROTO.OS2

REM *** Network Trace Driver 2 ***
DEVICE=C:\IBMCOM\PROTOCOL\NTRACE.OS2 TRACEIN$

Providing that PROTOCOL.INI contains the following sections

[ntracein_nif]

   DriverName = TRACEIN$
   Bindings = IBMFEEO2_nif,IBMTRP_nif
   MaxBufSegments = 32
   RejectFrames = 21

[ntraceou_nif]

   DriverName = TRACEOU$
   Bindings = IBMFEEO2_nif,IBMTRP_nif
   MaxBufSegments = 32
   RejectFrames = 21

This installation allows two copies of NTRACE.EXE to be launched at one time:

ntrace -iTRACEIN$ -a0 -finput.enc

and

ntrace -iTRACEOU$ -a0 -foutput.enc

The trace file input.enc will contain all frames on input to the newproto.os2 protocol driver. Conversely, the file output.enc will contain only those frames the newproto.os2 protocol driver rejects as belonging to other protocols.