Debugging Using a Remote Machine

Using debug configurations for remote projects

You use a local Visual COBOL installation to develop remote projects on a remote UNIX machine that has Visual COBOL Development Hub installed.

In order to debug a remote project, you use the same types of debug configuration as you would use for local projects. In the configuration, you need to specify the connection properties such as the machine name and the port number.

It is not necessary to start the cobdebugremote (Windows) or cobdebugremote32 (UNIX) process (or cobdebugremote64 for a 64-bit process) or identify a port for it to listen on. You just need to select the remote project in the debug configuration.

Performance considerations

When debugging a remote program, the performance of the network, specifically the latency between the local and remote machines, will have an effect on the responsiveness of Eclipse. Whenever Eclipse has to show the new execution position, a number of messages are sent from the remote machine, over the network, to get the required information. The effect of this is that it can take a few seconds after a Step command is issued before Eclipse has updated the screen and is ready for the next command.

You can mitigate this delay by closing any unnecessary debug views. For instance, by closing the Expressions view and the Variables view, the number of messages that are sent is reduced, which allows Eclipse to update quicker.

See the rest of the topics in this section for information on how to debug applications in remote machine scenarios.