Debugging - EduGarage (Blackboard Developers Network)

This tutorial will show you how to enable Tomcat debugging so that you can connect to your Building Block application with a code-level debugger such as those built into Eclipse and NetBeans.

Tutorial Contents

Enabling debugging by using bb-config.properties
Manually enabling debugging

Enabling debugging by using bb-config.properties

Newer versions of the Blackboard Learning System have a built-in flag to enable Tomcat debugging. Follow these steps to turn it on:

Open the file /blackboard/config/bb-config.properties in a text editor
Modify the value bbconfig.tomcat.debug.enable and set
```
bbconfig.tomcat.debug.enable=true
```
Navigate to /blackboard/tools/admin/ and run PushConfigUpdates.sh/.bat from the command line.
You can now connect with a debugger to port 2222 (or as set in the value for bbconfig.jvm.options.debug.tomcat)

If you do not have the value for "bbconfig.tomcat.debug.enable" in your bb-config.properties file, you will need to follow the instructions below to manually enable Tomcat debugging.

Manually enabling Tomcat debugging

Please see this presentation for information on how to make the manual configuration changes necessary to enable Tomcat debugging:
http://communities.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/orgs/UK-BbUG/Event%20Presentations/Greenhouse%20Workshop/Debugging.pdf