You can use trace command for tracing requests from HBase Shell. trace 'start' command turns on tracing and trace 'stop' command turns off tracing.

hbase(main):001:0> trace 'start'
hbase(main):002:0> put 'test', 'row1', 'f:', 'val1'   # traced commands
hbase(main):003:0> trace 'stop'

trace 'start' and trace 'stop' always returns boolean value representing if or not there is ongoing tracing. As a result, trace 'stop' returns false on suceess. trace 'status' just returns if or not tracing is turned on.

hbase(main):001:0> trace 'start'
=> true

hbase(main):002:0> trace 'status'
=> true

hbase(main):003:0> trace 'stop'
=> false

hbase(main):004:0> trace 'status'
=> false