Problem Diagnostics

Network Connection Diagnostics

When a TDengine client is unable to access a TDengine server, the network connection between the client side and the server side must be checked to find the root cause and resolve problems.

Diagnostics for network connections can be executed between Linux and Linux or between Linux and Windows.

Diagnostic steps：

1. If the port range to be diagnosed is being occupied by a taosd server process, please first stop `taosd.
2. On the server side, execute command taos -n server -P <port> -l <pktlen> to monitor the port range starting from the port specified by -P parameter with the role of "server".
3. On the client side, execute command taos -n client -h <fqdn of server> -P <port> -l <pktlen> to send a testing package to the specified server and port.

-l <pktlen>: The size of the testing package, in bytes. The value range is [11, 64,000] and default value is 1,000. Please note that the package length must be same in the above 2 commands executed on server side and client side respectively.

Output of the server side for the example is below:

# taos -n server -P 6000
12/21 14:50:13.522509 0x7f536f455200 UTL work as server, host:172.27.0.7 startPort:6000 endPort:6011 pkgLen:1000

12/21 14:50:13.522659 0x7f5352242700 UTL TCP server at port:6000 is listening
12/21 14:50:13.522727 0x7f5351240700 UTL TCP server at port:6001 is listening
...
...
...
12/21 14:50:13.523954 0x7f5342fed700 UTL TCP server at port:6011 is listening
12/21 14:50:13.523989 0x7f53437ee700 UTL UDP server at port:6010 is listening
12/21 14:50:13.524019 0x7f53427ec700 UTL UDP server at port:6011 is listening
12/21 14:50:22.192849 0x7f5352242700 UTL TCP: read:1000 bytes from 172.27.0.8 at 6000
12/21 14:50:22.192993 0x7f5352242700 UTL TCP: write:1000 bytes to 172.27.0.8 at 6000
12/21 14:50:22.237082 0x7f5351a41700 UTL UDP: recv:1000 bytes from 172.27.0.8 at 6000
12/21 14:50:22.237203 0x7f5351a41700 UTL UDP: send:1000 bytes to 172.27.0.8 at 6000
12/21 14:50:22.237450 0x7f5351240700 UTL TCP: read:1000 bytes from 172.27.0.8 at 6001
12/21 14:50:22.237576 0x7f5351240700 UTL TCP: write:1000 bytes to 172.27.0.8 at 6001
12/21 14:50:22.281038 0x7f5350a3f700 UTL UDP: recv:1000 bytes from 172.27.0.8 at 6001
12/21 14:50:22.281141 0x7f5350a3f700 UTL UDP: send:1000 bytes to 172.27.0.8 at 6001
...
...
...
12/21 14:50:22.677443 0x7f5342fed700 UTL TCP: read:1000 bytes from 172.27.0.8 at 6011
12/21 14:50:22.677576 0x7f5342fed700 UTL TCP: write:1000 bytes to 172.27.0.8 at 6011
12/21 14:50:22.721144 0x7f53427ec700 UTL UDP: recv:1000 bytes from 172.27.0.8 at 6011
12/21 14:50:22.721261 0x7f53427ec700 UTL UDP: send:1000 bytes to 172.27.0.8 at 6011

Output of the client side for the example is below:

# taos -n client -h 172.27.0.7 -P 6000
12/21 14:50:22.192434 0x7fc95d859200 UTL work as client, host:172.27.0.7 startPort:6000 endPort:6011 pkgLen:1000

12/21 14:50:22.192472 0x7fc95d859200 UTL server ip:172.27.0.7 is resolved from host:172.27.0.7
12/21 14:50:22.236869 0x7fc95d859200 UTL successed to test TCP port:6000
12/21 14:50:22.237215 0x7fc95d859200 UTL successed to test UDP port:6000
...
...
...
12/21 14:50:22.676891 0x7fc95d859200 UTL successed to test TCP port:6010
12/21 14:50:22.677240 0x7fc95d859200 UTL successed to test UDP port:6010
12/21 14:50:22.720893 0x7fc95d859200 UTL successed to test TCP port:6011
12/21 14:50:22.721274 0x7fc95d859200 UTL successed to test UDP port:6011

The output needs to be checked carefully for the system operator to find the root cause and resolve the problem.

Startup Status and RPC Diagnostic

taos -n startup -h <fqdn of server> can be used to check the startup status of a taosd process. This is a common task which should be performed by a system operator, especially in the case of a cluster, to determine whether taosd has been started successfully.

taos -n rpc -h <fqdn of server> can be used to check whether the port of a started taosd can be accessed or not. If taosd process doesn't respond or is working abnormally, this command can be used to initiate a rpc communication with the specified fqdn to determine whether it's a network problem or whether taosd is abnormal.

Sync and Arbitrator Diagnostic

taos -n sync -P 6040 -h <fqdn of server>
taos -n sync -P 6042 -h <fqdn of server>

The above commands can be executed in a Linux shell to check whether the port for sync is working well and whether the sync module on the server side is working well. Additionally, -P 6042 is used to check whether the arbitrator is configured properly and is working well.

Network Speed Diagnostic

taos -n speed -h <fqdn of server> -P 6030 -N 10 -l 10000000 -S TCP

From version 2.2.0.0 onwards, the above command can be executed in a Linux shell to test network speed. The command sends uncompressed packages to a running taosd server process or a simulated server process started by taos -n server to test the network speed. Parameters can be used when testing network speed are as below:

-n：When set to "speed", it means testing network speed. -h：The FQDN or IP of the server process to be connected to; if not set, the FQDN configured in taos.cfg is used. -P：The port of the server process to connect to, the default value is 6030. -N：The number of packages that will be sent in the test, range is [1,10000], default value is 100. -l：The size of each package in bytes, range is [1024, 1024 * 1024 * 1024], default value is 1024. -S：The type of network packages to send, can be either TCP or UDP, default value is TCP.

FQDN Resolution Diagnostic

taos -n fqdn -h <fqdn of server>

From version 2.2.0.0 onward, the above command can be executed in a Linux shell to test the resolution speed of FQDN. It can be used to try to resolve a FQDN to an IP address and record the time spent in this process. The parameters that can be used for this purpose are as below:

-n：When set to "fqdn", it means testing the speed of resolving FQDN. -h：The FQDN to be resolved. If not set, the FQDN parameter in taos.cfg is used by default.

Server Log

The parameter debugFlag is used to control the log level of the taosd server process. The default value is 131. For debugging and tracing, it needs to be set to either 135 or 143 respectively.

Once this parameter is set to 135 or 143, the log file grows very quickly especially when there is a huge volume of data insertion and data query requests. If all the logs are stored together, some important information may be missed very easily and so on the server side, important information is stored in a different place from other logs.

• The log at level of INFO, WARNING and ERROR is stored in taosinfo so that it is easy to find important information
• The log at level of DEBUG (135) and TRACE (143) and other information not handled by taosinfo are stored in taosdlog

Client Log

An independent log file, named as "taoslog+<seq num>" is generated for each client program, i.e. a client process. The default value of debugFlag is also 131 and only logs at level of INFO/ERROR/WARNING are recorded. As stated above, for debugging and tracing, it needs to be changed to 135 or 143 respectively, so that logs at DEBUG or TRACE level can be recorded.

The maximum length of a single log file is controlled by parameter numOfLogLines and only 2 log files are kept for each taosd server process.

Log files are written in an async way to minimize the workload on disk, but the trade off for performance is that a few log lines may be lost in some extreme conditions.