Technical data

1
Introduction to CTF
This chapter provides a brief introduction to the Common Trace Facility (CTF).
For a more detailed description of the components and functions of CTF, see
Chapter 2.
1.1 What Is CTF?
CTF is a VMS utility that assists in network problem solving. CTF allows you to
collect and display information about specific protocol exchanges between systems
in a network. This information is often very useful when attempting to solve such
problems as:
• Suspected configuration problems
• Failures while establishing or using network links
• Network overload
• Poor network performance
1.2 How Does CTF Work?
Many of Digital’s networking products include support for CTF. A networking
product supports CTF by including within its code a number of tracepoints.
A tracepoint is a point within the networking software at which the data
currently being processed (a combination of user data and protocol data) can be
made available to a user for recording and analysis. Whenever a tracepoint is
reached during execution of networking software, a signal is sent to CTF that
this data is available for collection. The CTF user interface allows you to specify
which tracepoints are to be traced; that is, you can specify those tracepoints from
which data is to be collected whenever it is available.
Introduction to CTF 1–1