What is debugging and why to use it?

Debugging is a process that allows error-collection and logging systems on systems to a file or to a monitor. Specifically, it provides in-line debugging functionality for processes and hardware. Use debug commands with caution and before debugging and be sure to monitor the CPU load with the show processes cpu command. Enabling debugging can disrupt operations of a router when experiencing high load conditions. Hence, if logging is enabled, the access server can intermittently freeze as soon as the console port gets overloaded with log messages.

Steps to configure debugging safely

Step 1: Configure logging using the below recommended configurations.

R1#terminal length 0
R1(config)#service sequence-numbers
R1(config)#service timestamps debug datetime localtime msec
R1(config)#logging buffered 10000000 debug
R1(config)#no logging console
R1(config)#no logging monitor
R1(config)#default logging rate-limit
R1(config)#default logging queue-limit
R1(config)#voice iec syslog

Step 2: In this example we are simululating a VPN problem. We will configure a site-to-site IPsec VPN but configure R2 with a mismatched crypto password.

R2(config)#no crypto isakmp key vpnpasswordhere address 1.1.1.1
R2(config)#!
R2(config)#crypto isakmp key wrongvpnpassword address 1.1.1.1

Step 3: Enable session capture to txt file in the putty terminal program.

Step 4: Clear the router’s logs before enable debugging to get a clearer view of what is happening.

R1#clear logging system

Step 4: Enable debugging using one or more debug command then wait for the issue to occur. When finished issue the no debug command.

R1#debug crypto isakmp
!
R1#no debug crypto isakmp

Step 5: show the local log output and review findings.

R1#show logging

Step 6: In reviewing the loging we can see the below output where “Deleting the unauthenticated sa” and “Deleting the peer struct for unauthenticated sa”. We can further observe in the logging “Death by retransmission P1” indicating the VPN is failing in phase 1 and there is no mention of phase 2.

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