The traceSM utility is an interactive perl script on Session Manager that allows an administrator to capture, view, and save call processing activity. While not as powerful or versatile as the Wireshark utility, traceSM is essential when working with Avaya SIP. It allows you to view SIP messages even if they have been encrypted with TLS; which cannot be done with Wireshark. The traceSM utility can also display Avaya-specific data such as Personal Profile Manager (PPM) messages and Session Manager call flows.

To run traceSM you must Telnet into the active Session Manager. Only one traceSM instance can be running on a Session Manager at any given time by default. To use multiple instances, it must be run with the -m option. Avaya advises against running multiple instance of traceSM in a production environment as it may cause performance problems.

traceSM should be accessible through the default path. It is located in /opt/Avaya/contrib/bin.

The traceSM utility is a real-time capture tool. You cannot start traceSM to see SIP packets that were sent prior to launching the tool. The capture begins when the application starts and you instruct the application to start capturing logs.

The utility capture buffer is limited to 10,000 packets. Packet collection stops after the buffer is filled. Clear the buffer using the provided commands to continue with capture.