Debugger

The Zend Debugger component enables remote debugging of PHP scripts with Zend Studio.

The Zend Debugger communicates with the Zend (PHP) Engine to retrieve runtime information and present it in Zend Studio for root cause analysis purposes.

The Zend Debugger API communicates with the Zend (PHP) engine to reveal PHP runtime information such as variables, call stack and environment information. This information is then displayed and set up in Zend Studio to enable server side debugging, profiling and code coverage.  

Debug Mode

Debug Mode allows you to listen in on URL requests to a specific Zend Server, without initializing a debug session from a browser using Z-Ray or from within Zend Studio. When Debug Mode is enabled for a server, all requests matching URL filters associated with a particular target trigger a debug session in Zend Studio. Debug Mode is especially useful when your circumstances do not allow you to set debug parameters in a request, for example, when using a mobile device.

In the UI, go to the Servers | Manage Servers page, and under the Debug Mode column check whether your server/s is/are in Debug Mode.

For more information on using Debug Mode, see the Zend Studio Online Help.

Remote Debugging Through a Firewall?

Remote debugging is the process of creating a connection between two machines: For example, the machine on which the Debugger (Zend Studio) resides and the machine on which the Zend Server resides. When these machines are on the same local network or there are no security devices that limit remote connections, no additional action is required. However, if one or both of the machines are behind a firewall, the communication required to run the debug process is not allowed. To allow debugging and still maintain a secure environment, you need to use firewall tunneling. For more information on how to setup firewall tunneling, see Working with Firewall Tunneling.

Wildcards (Net Mask)

Wildcards use the asterisk (*) to define a string of IP addresses and to specify a range of IPs that are either allowed or denied hosts. This option makes it possible to specify a range of IPs from 0-255, according to the selected number of wildcards. For example, if you use the Net Mask option to deny the IPs 10.1.3. *, all the IP addresses beginning with 10.1.3. are denied access to the Studio Server (i.e., integration with Studio is not permitted for these IP addresses).

Note:

Zend Server is also bundled with XDebug. For information on setting up debugging in Zend Server with XDebug, see Setting Up Debugging.