Tracing SOAP over HTTP in Information Services Director

WebSphere Application Server (WAS) tracing can capture the entire SOAP message. The following instructions were made using WAS 7.0. The procedure should be the same for other WAS releases, though the exact names of the links, admin pages, buttons etc may vary slightly between those releases.

These instructions explain how to enable the trace at runtime, without restarting the server.

1. Log into WAS Administration Console.
2. From then left navigation menu, expand Troubleshooting
3. Click on "Logs and trace" link
4. In the main panel, click on the server name in the table for your server
5. Under General Properties in the main panel, choose Diagnostic Trace
6. Click the "Runtime" tab.
7. Under Trace Output section, select File option
8. Provide the path to where you want the trace file to go
9. Set the max file size and number of files based on your requirements*
10. Click apply.
11. Under Additional Properties, click "Change log detail levels"
12. In the text area, add the following options (separated by colon ' : ' characters)
    
    com.ibm.ws.webservices.trace.MessageTrace=all
    com.ibm.ws.webservices.trace.UserExceptionTrace=all
    
    
13. Click OK to save the changes, and then click OK on the parent page to save changes.

* Depending on how many messages you need to trace, and how much data in these messages, you need to set the file size and number of files so that the log will contain all of the data you want to inspect before the logs roll over. Some experimentation may be necessary.

For further detail on this (and other) web services tracing, visit the Information Center for your exact WAS release, and search for the topic "Tracing Web Services".