Tracking software does not come for free. For this reason, the OSA framework is disabled by default and has to be enabled to make it track anything or get any information out of it.
There are different ways to enable and disable the OSA framework. First, it can be done via the command line using the enable-tracker command. To disable the tracker again use the disable-tracker command.
simics> board.software.enable-tracker
simics> board.software.disable-tracker
Secondly, it can be enabled (disabled) using the request (release) function in the osa_control_v2 interface. The request function generates a new OSA framework handle and the release function releases the corresponding handle. The OSA framework is enabled when there exist at least one active OSA framework handle and is disabled when there are no active OSA framework handles. The enable-tracker command uses the osa_control_v2 interface internally to enable and disable the OSA framework. Hence, this way to enable and disable the OSA framework can be used from within scripts without affecting OSA framework operation started from other scripts.
simics> @admin = conf.board.software.iface.osa_component.get_admin()
simics> @(ok, riq_or_msg) = admin.iface.osa_control_v2.request("My requester")
simics> @admin.iface.osa_control_v2.release(riq_or_msg)
Each of the above methods for controlling the OSA framework are separate from each other. That means that the framework can only be disabled using the matching disable function and that the framework will stay active until there are no more users with an active request.
Some trackers are able to determine some information about the running software just by enabling it on an already running system, but in other cases there is additional—and sometimes important information— that can only be collected by having the tracker enabled while the software starts. For instance, the Linux software tracker can determine the name and process id of already running processes, but to determine the path to the running binary the tracker needs to be enabled when the process starts.