Message Tracing

Message Tracing is an identification of each message flow in each transaction which goes through the gateway. WSO2 API Manager provides the facility to do message tracing by installing the Message Tracer feature developed for WSO2 Products. It is used to logging, auditing and debugging message content and it’s direction.

Message Tracer is a part of carbon-analytics. From API Manager 2.1.0 onwards, Message Tracer feature is build into API Manager.

Configuring Message Tracer

Follow the below steps to configure Message Tracer in API Manager.

1. Log into Managemet Console (https://localhost:9443/carbon).
2. Navigate to Configure > Message Tracing in Configure Tab to open the Message Tracing Configuration.
3. Select Enable Message Tracing and click Update to enable Message Tracking.
   
4. Select following options as well if you wish to get the message tracing in detail.

Tracing Events Publishing to API Manager Analytics

You can trace the messages of event publishing to API Manager Analytics with Message Tracing feature following below steps.

1. Select Enable Analytics Event Publishing in Message Tracer Configuration and click update.

   

   Once you have saved the changes, APIM will generate stream definition in <APIIM_HOM>/repository/deployment/server/eventstreams/DAS_MESSAGE_TRACE_1.0.0.json.

2. Copy the DAS_MESSAGE_TRACE_1.0.0.json file to <APIM_ANALITICS_HOME>/repository/deployment/server/eventstreams directory to deploy the same definition in API Manager Analytics.

3. Login to API Manager Analytics (https://localhost:9444/carbon) and navigate to Main > Event > Streams.

   You will be able to see the deployed stream under event streams. Now we need to persist the event stream to save data into a table.
   

4. Click Edit in the stream definition DAS_MESSAGE_TRACE:1.0.0 and open the edit view.
5. Click Next[Persist Event] at the bottom of the edit view.
6. In the next page select Persist Event Stream and select all attribute checkboxes to perist and click on Save Event Stream button.
   
   You should configure an Event receiver to point thid Event stream.
7. Go to Main -> Event -> Receivers in API Manager Analytics and and click on Add Event Receiver.
   

8. Add following details and click on Add Event Receiver.

   property	Value
   Event Receiver Name	message_trace_receiver
   Input Event Adoptor Type	wso2event
   Is events duplicated in cluster	false
   Event Stream	DAS_MESSAGE_TRACE:1.0.0
   Message format	wso2event

   Next, a publisher need to be configured in order to publish events to API Manager Analytics. To do that,

9. Go to Main > Event > Publishers in API Manager Analytics and click Add Event Publisher.
   

10. In Create a New Event Publisher page, add the following details and click Add Event Publisher.

    Property	Value
    Event Publisher Name	message_tracer_publisher
    Event Source	DAS_MESSAGE_TRACE:1.0.0
    Stream Attributes	Keep default values
    Output Event Adaptor Type	wso2event
    Receiver URL	tcp://localhost:7612
    User Name	admin
    Password	admin
    Protocol	thrift
    Publishing mode	non-blocking
    Message Format	wso2event

    
    

Results

After enabling Message tracing, Dump Message Contnet and Logging, you can see the log Message similar to this from API Console for events like API invocation etc.

[2017-01-11 11:43:08,039]  INFO - HandlerUtils Massage Info: Transaction id=632470820207822377292  Message direction=IN  Server name=172.17.0.1:9763  Timestamp=1515651188039  Service name=__SynapseService  Operation Name=mediate
[2017-01-11 11:43:08,040]  INFO - HandlerUtils Massage Info: Transaction id=632470820207822377292  Message direction=OUT  Server name=172.17.0.1:9763  Timestamp=1515651188040  Service name=__SynapseService  Operation Name=mediate
[2017-01-11 11:43:08,047]  INFO - HandlerUtils Massage Info: Transaction id=632471565977965101628  Message direction=IN  Server name=172.17.0.1:9763  Timestamp=1515651188047  Service name=__SynapseService  Operation Name=mediate
[2017-01-11 11:43:08,060]  INFO - HandlerUtils Massage Info: Transaction id=632471565977965101628  Message direction=OUT  Server name=172.17.0.1:9763  Timestamp=1515651188058  Service name=__SynapseService  Operation Name=mediate

If you have enabled Analytics event Publishing,

1. Login to WSO2 API Manager Analytics (https://localhost:9444/carbon)
2. Navigate to Main > Data Explorer.
3. Select the table DAS_MESSAGE_TRACE and click Search.
   You can see the event data traced in WSO2 Analytics Data Explorer as below.