Tech Tip: TIM Settings Part One
Introduction
One of the overlooked areas for TIM problems are TIM settings. This underdocumented area will be explored below and in the articles in the next few months.
Overview
The TIM has a variety of Global settings that have the format of names and a value. The name is usually two parts such as BtStats/Enabled where the first part is a prefix that describes a class, function, or category. The second part is the operation or subcategory to be configured. Note that there are one-part setting names such as MaxLogSizeInMB.
Some settings may not be explicitly defined so will use default implied settings.
Some of the common Name Prefixes include:
AutoGen - Transaction Discovery
BtStats - To enable/disable RTTM, change log level and other functionality.
DiskSpace - Disk space settings.
Flex - Flex Processing
FlexAMFParser - Flex Processing
Parallel - To enable using workers for MTP.
SetTimTime - Set the Tim Time maximum difference.
SiteMinder - SiteMinder settings such as trace enabled.
TessTimeZone - Hour Offset
TraceFilters - TIM Trace options
TransactionInspection - TIM Transaction Settings options
XmlPlugin - Enabling XML Plugin
These settings are accessed are accessed or changed through the TIM System Setup>Configure TIM Setup page via your browser. Once there, you may view the current settings and then change them. Or you may add a new name/value page. After the change is made, a TIM restart is NOT needed.
Besides looking at the GUI, there are other ways to view the TIM settings:
1) When collecting the TIM logs and configuration files from the TIM system setup there is a settings file in the status folder.
2) Using configtool (which is a python script) allows you to read, write, or delete one or more entries in the tim database. It is found in the /etc/wily/cem/tim/bin or /opt/CA/APM/tim/ (APM 9.6 and later) directories. There are various command line arguments to do this:
-f -- the Tim settings filename and location. This is
required. Filename is timsettings.db
-g -- display specific name/value pair.
-l -- list all values
-n -- create a new TIM settings database
-u -- unset a value
-F -- Fast - Does not tell TIM of change. (Normally TIM
is aware of all changes made to the TIM Settings
database.)
Examples:
1. Getting all settings -- /etc/wily/cem/tim/bin/configtool -f /etc/wily/cem/tim/config/timsettings.db -l
2. Getting a specific setting -- /etc/wily/cem/tim/bin/configtool -f /etc/wily/cem/tim/config/timsettings.db -l | grep 'Tess.*IpAddr'
3) On TIM Restart, all of the TIM Settings are listed included those not shown in the GUI. The difference is this also includes the implied TIM Settings. So while a TIM Restart after a change is not needed, it is recommended to see if the TIM setting change took place. The line will look something like this: (This is for a MTP so there is a worker number.)
Mon Mar 30 09:24:32 2015 18717 w2: ComponentMonitor: DB: BTStats/Level = 0
^ ^ ^ ^
Date &Time TIM Process Setting Name Setting Value
The data is stored in a Berkeley database which has nothing other than the TIM Settings name/value pairs. The TIM process does not need to be running to access the database.
Notes:
1. Some programs will write the TIM Settings to the APM database for you. (nCipher is one such example.)
2. There is no database name/value validation. So please check that your name/value entries are correct after entry.
Next time we will talk about which settings are documented and where. the final article will be on troubleshooting
Questions:
1. Which TIM Settings have you changed that solved problems or improved performance.
2. Is there a particular TIM Setting that you want to be better document
3. Please mail to hallett.german@ca.com future topics to cover