Configuring Internet Protocol (IP) routing

gated trace statements

There are two types of trace statement: traceoptions and tracefile.

The traceoptions trace statement controls tracing options. gated's tracing options may be configured at many levels. Tracing options include the file specifications, control options, and global and protocol-specific tracing options. Unless overridden, tracing options from the next higher level are inherited by lower levels. For example, BGP peer tracing options are inherited from BGP group tracing options, which are inherited from global BGP tracing options, which are inherited from global gated tracing options. At each level, tracing specifications override the inherited options.

Tracing options are:

all: Turn on all of the tracing options below except nostamp.
none: Turn off all tracing options.
general: Turn on internal, external, and route.
internal: Internal errors and informational messages.
external: External errors.
nostamp: Do not timestamp all messages in the tracefile.
mark: Output a message to the tracelog every 10 minutes to ensure gated is still running.
task: Task scheduling, signal handling, and packet reception.
timer: Timer scheduling.
parse: Trace the lexical analyzer and parser. Mostly used by gated developers for debugging. Tokens the parser recognizes in the configuration file.
route: Changes to the gated routing table.
kernel: Changes to the kernel's routing table.
bgp: BGP packets sent and received. May be modified by update and protocol.
egp: EGP packets sent and received. May be modified by update and protocol.
rip: RIP packets sent and received. May be modified by update.
icmp: ICMP redirect packets sent and received. May be modified by update.
Note that redirects processed are traced under the route option.
snmp: SNMP packets sent and received. May be modified by update.
protocol: Provide messages about protocol state machine transitions when used with EGP, BGP, or OSPF.
update: Trace the contents of protocol packets.

Not all of the above options apply to all of the protocols. In some cases, their use does not make sense. When protocols inherit their tracing options from the global tracing options, tracing levels that don't make sense (such as parse tracing options) are masked out.

Global tracing statements have an immediate effect, especially parsing options that affect the parsing of the configuration file. Tracing values inherited by protocols specified in the configuration file are initially inherited from the global options in effect as they are parsed, unless they are overridden by more specific options. After the configuration file is read, tracing options that were not explicitly specified are inherited from the global options in effect at the end of the configuration file.

The syntax of the traceoptions statement is:

   traceoptions trace_option [ trace_option [ . . . ] ]
      [ except trace_option [ trace_option [ . . . ] ] ] ;

The clause ``except trace_options'' is useful in enabling a broad class of tracing and then disabling more specific options.

The tracefile trace statement specifies the file(s) to which tracing output is written. The tracefile statement syntax is:

   tracefile [filename [replace]] [size size[k|m] files files];

where:

filename: specifies the file to receive tracing information. If this filename does not begin with a slash (/), the directory where gated was started is prepended to the name.
replace: specifies that tracing should start by replacing an existing file. The default is to append to an existing file.
size size[k|m] files files: limits the maximum size of the tracefile to the specified size (minimum 10k). When the tracefile reaches the specified size, it is renamed to file.0, then file.1, then file.2 up to the maximum number of files (minimum specification is 2).