Live Debugger

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Overview
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OneAgent version 1.309+

Dynatrace Live Debugger is a Cloud-Native and live data collection application that gives you instant access to the code-level data you need to troubleshoot and debug quickly in any environment, from dev to production.

With a single click, you can access the necessary and relevant data without needing to add additional code, wait for redeploy, or attempt to reproduce issues locally.
Using non-breaking breakpoints, you can instantly see the complete state of your app, including stack trace, variable values, and more, all without stopping or breaking your running code.

Live Debugger is available across the Code Monitoring rate card for Dynatrace SaaS deployments with DPS accounts, in environments configured to Full Stack monitoring mode, running Java and Node.js applications.

OneAgent comes with a large set of features that are activated by default. Nevertheless, you always need to explicitly activate features added by newer versions of OneAgent and opt-in features. For details see, OneAgent Features and API Configuration.
OneAgent version 1.309+ To enable Observability for Developers (Live Debugger), ensure that your OneAgent is up to date and deployed correctly.

Availability

Dynatrace Live Debugger is only available on Dynatrace SaaS deployments with a DPS account that has the Code Monitoring rate card associated with the account. Please contact a Dynatrace product expert via live chat within your environment. For further details about pricing, see the Code Monitoring documentation.

Enable Live Debugger

Your Dynatrace Platform Subscription will begin once the steps outlined below are completed.

To enable Live Debugger (as part of the Observability for Developers product), the environment admin needs to

Go to Settings > Preferences > OneAgent features.
Enable the Java Live-Debugger, Node.js Live-Debugger, or both, depending on your needs.

Restart the OneAgent.

A restart is required to enable the Java Live-Debugger feature, which necessitates restarting the respective agents.

To use the Live Debugger, you must opt-in to Observability for Developers. You can enable it for specific process groups, Kubernetes namespaces, clusters, or for the entire environment running in full-stack monitoring mode.

Enabling or disabling this will start and stop your Dynatrace Platform Subscription consumption.

Go to Settings > Observability for Developers > Enable Observability for Developers

On the process group overview page, select Settings.
Go to Observability for Developers > Enable Observability for Developers.

Go to Kubernetes app.
Select a namespace or cluster.
Select More (…) in the top-right corner, then select Connection settings, or, if not available Anomaly detection settings.
Go to Observability for Developers > Enable Observability for Developers

Next steps

Now proceed to the Live Debugger Setup page to complete the final configuration steps.

Real-time snapshot of debug data created once a non-breaking breakpoint has been triggered.

Real-time snapshots with JetBrains PlugIn

1 of 3Real-time snapshot of debug data created once a non-breaking breakpoint has been triggered.

To start using the Live Debugger:

Open Live Debugger through the applications page. If Live Debugger is not displayed, install it from Dynatrace Hub.

To start your debugging session, open the Customize your debug session page by selecting the Debug Configuration edit button in the upper-left corner of the application.

You'll need to select one or more filters from either the Facets/Categories or by using the free search box to scope the instances you would like to debug. Filters can also be set through the Facets/Categories right pane, which can be opened by selecting a specific instance item in the list.

Windows: 7, 8, 8/1 aren't supported.
Mac: All versions are supported.

Each debug session contains the source code you want to debug. The Live Debugger application lets you quickly load sources from your local file system and Git provider. When you integrate your source code into Live Debugger, it remains between your code repository and your local browser.

There are two main ways to import your source code:

Automatic fetching

Live Debugger can connect to a repository and automatically fetch the source code for the selected instance.

Your repository may be automatically fetched for the selected instance based on your git permissions, if it has already been set up by your admin.
To learn more about automatic fetching, see Integrate with your Version Control.

Manual fetching

Live Debugger lets you easily load your relevant source code into the application.

Select the + icon on the upper-right corner of the Set up your session page to open a list with the supported git providers you're able to fetch sources from.
Live Debugger includes a desktop application that can access source repositories from your local file system. This enables you to fetch source code from locally hosted Git providers. You can find the desktop application's installation file in the Live Debugger app, when selecting your source code.

Live Debugger integrates directly to the cloud editions of the following Git providers, both on-premises and SaaS:

Github
BitBucket
GitLab
Azure DevOps

To enable Live Debugger to integrate with your Git provider

Go to Settings > Dynatrace Apps > Git On-Premise Servers.
Select Add item. Git Provider: specify your Git provider. Server URL: provide the HTTP/HTTPS URL of your server.
Select Save changes.
- To use BitBucket On-Premises, you need to install the desktop application (see the Manual Fetching section above).

To get real-time code-level data

Select the service you want to debug.
Navigate to the file system.
Set a non-breaking breakpoint on the line of code you want to debug.

Non-breaking breakpoints are reference breakpoints for the lines of code from which you want to collect debug data. These breakpoints will not stop your code from running; instead, they will carry the debug data collection request. Placing these breakpoints and receiving the derived snapshots will not affect your application or its users.

After placing a non-breaking breakpoint, make sure your code has been triggered, so that the data will be collected and appear immediately in the application.

Once the non-breaking breakpoint is triggered, the collected data will be displayed as snapshot items in the lower-left panel. By selecting a specific snapshot, you can view

All local variables and their values
Process information
The complete stack trace leading to the breakpoint
Tracing information from the running application.

You can also debug code up the stack from the stack trace view, including third-party components.

Application Observability

The inability to access code-level data on demand is a challenge that most developers face when troubleshooting and debugging application issues. Instead, they have to go through long deployment cycles and investigation of logs to find the relevant data they need to understand what's going on in their running code.

To avoid this, it's essential to give them a solution that offers instant access to the data they need, no matter the environment.

Live Debugger

The Live Debugger application is a Cloud-Native debugging and live data collection solution that gives instant access to the code-level debug data you need to troubleshoot and understand complex, modern applications with no extra coding, redeployments, or restarts.

Live Debugger can be used in any environment, from development to production, and at any time, to instantly access the real-time data needed to get to the root cause of issues faster.

Dynamic logging

Developer teams often try to log as much as possible, as they are often not sure what data will be needed to debug an issue. This generates many unneeded logs and horrid signal/noise ratios.

By shifting their logging mindset to Live Debugging, teams can reduce logging costs and, most importantly, the heavy effort required to support intense logging pipelines and cleanups.

Development collaboration

Collected debug data can be shared among team members when debugging application issues. This allows team members to have their own view of collected debug data and share that data with other team members for improved collaboration.

As a result, Live Debugger can become a single source of truth, the go-to place for developers to see reality as it is and collaborate on it.

On-demand trace inspection

Live Debugger collects an object representation of traces used by your application. Developers can then correlate captured debug data with tracing data from your application.

Dev training and onboarding

Understanding new code can be challenging. It is twice as tricky when it's legacy code or, as often occurs, code written by someone else.

Live Debugger lets developers speed up their learning process by allowing them to observe unfamiliar code running in its native environment.

Live Debugger

Enable Live Debugger

Enable the Live Debugger OneAgent feature

Restart the OneAgent

Enable Live Debugger

Next steps

Go to the Live Debugger application

Select the instances to debug by applying the relevant filters

Source code fetching

Place a non-breaking breakpoint

Make sure that the code is triggered

See the debug data

Application Observability

Live Debugger

Dynamic logging

Development collaboration

On-demand trace inspection

Dev training and onboarding

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