Remotely debug an application on SAP BTP

This guides outlines the steps you need to follow to start a remote debugging session from your IDE for an application that is already deployed on Cloud Foundry in SAP BTP.

Assign yourself as a Space Developer

note

You need to have the Space Manager or Org Manager role. For details see here.

• Open the SAP Business Technology Platform Cockpit and navigate to your subaccount
• Go to the space on Cloud Foundry where your application will be pushed to
• Click Member on the left side menu
• Add yourself as a Space Developer

Deploy Your Application with Debug Mode

In the package.json file, replace the start script to run in debug mode. E.g., instead of node start.js for node, use:

node --inspect start.js

And instead of ts-node start.ts, use:

node -r ts-node/register --inspect start.ts

You can do this by either changing your start script in the package.json or the command script in the manifest.yml.

note

Don't use --inspect-brk, this will make the start timeout on SAP Business Technology Platform.

Deploy your application as usual by running the command:

cf deploy

Open an ssh Tunnel to Your Application

Open an ssh tunnel to your backend application to connect your local debugger with the node inspector running on port 9229. Replace <your-app-name> with your application name and run:

$ cf ssh <your-app-name> -L 9229:127.0.0.1:9229 -T -N

Attach a Local Debugger

Now you can attach your local debugger. For this you will have to launch a debugger that attaches to the remote session.

Visual Studio Code

In Visual Studio Code, you can use the below attach configuration for Node.js debugging. Replace YOUR_APPLICATION_PATH with the relative path to your application directory:

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "type": "node",
      "request": "attach",
      "name": "Attach to Remote",
      "address": "127.0.0.1",
      "port": 9229,
      "localRoot": "${workspaceFolder}/YOUR_APPLICATION_PATH",
      "remoteRoot": "/home/vcap/app",
      "skipFiles": ["node_modules/**"]
    }
  ]
}

Webstorm

In Webstorm you can add configure debugging by creating a config as shown below:

Start the debugger !