How to enable debugging for an Fast Data Masker (FDM) masking job

Products

• CA Test Data Manager (Data Finder / Grid Tools)

Issue/Introduction

There are times when it's helpful to run a masking job in debug mode to get more information as to why the job fails, or in the event you are seeing unexpected results.

Environment

All supported releases of FDM

Resolution

• The masking option DIAGLEVEL is used to set the level of diagnostics to be logged during a masking job. The possible values are 0 - 5, where 0 disables logging (no diagnostics) and 5 being the deepest level of diagnostics. The default level of diagnostics is 1, where general information is logged, along with any errors recorded. 

  To enable debugging:

  1. Launch the FDM UI
     
     
  2. Connect to the target database, or flat file.
     
     
  3. Create the masking rules, or load an existing masking configuration in the 'Masking' tab.
     
     
  4. Select the 'Options' tab, and set DIAGLEVEL between 2 and 5. Where 2 is the lowest level of debugging, and 5 being the deepest level of debugging. 
     Note: Debugging will slow down the masking job, so keep this in mind. If the masking job is large and complex, setting the diagnostics level to 5 could slow down the performance of the masking job significantly, due to the level of logging. It's recommended to use the lowest level for debugging whenever possible, for large and complex jobs.
     
     
     
     
  5. In the summary tab, click the 'Save & Run' button.
     
     
  6. Once you have recreated the issue, or if the job completes, go to the location where FDM was configured to write the lob log. By default, this is the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Grid-Tools\FastDataMasker\logs directory.
     
     
  7. Analyze the log file, or open a support case, and provide:
     • A detailed description of the problem.
     • A copy of the FDM masking configuration (CSV) file detailing the masking rules used.
     • A copy of the Options file 
     • The FDM log containing the debug information
     • The DDL of the database table being masked, or a copy of the flat file definition file
       • A sample of the data with any sensitive data removed. For flat files, please include a copy of the file, with sensitive data removed.

Additional Information

The Options tab provides options to allow you to select where FDM will create the various files used for logging and auditing:

• AUDIT - When enabled, FDM will create an audit log. This can be helpful when troubleshooting expected results, since by default, the original values and masked values are logged.
  Possible values are:
• • ALL- all masked rows will be included.
  • ROWnnn - where nnn represents the number of rows to be audited. For example, ROW100, will audit the first 100 rows.
  • SAMPLEnnn - where every nnn rows are audited. For example, SAMPLE100 will set every 100th row to be audited.
    
    
• AUDITDIR - Sets the path of the Audit directory to be used for his job.
  
  
• AUDITFILE - Sets the name of the audit file. For example, MyAudit.csv
  
  
• ERORDIR - Sets the path of the error log
  
  
• LOGDIR - Sets the path of the job log (debug log).
  
  
• LOGFILENAME - Sets the name of the log file. For example: MyDebugLog.txt

For more information of any of the masking options, see the TDM documentation - Reference - Masking Options

If needing to troubleshoot an issue with the FDM User Interface, see How to troubleshoot the Fast Data Masker (FDM) UI