How to Create a Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine sosreport and Submit the Report to Red Hat

Updated -

About the sosreport Utility

The sosreport utility collects detailed information about a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) system. The information collected is used to analyze a running RHEL system configuration and to diagnose and resolve system issues. To run the utility within a RHEL virtual machine in Microsoft Azure, complete the following steps.

Note: If the sosreport utility is not present, install it using yum install sos.

Creating the sosreport

  1. Update the sosreport utility: yum update sos.

    RHEL 7 Note: RHEL 7.4 (and later) ships with a sosreport version that includes an Azure plug-in module. The Azure plug-in module collects WALinuxAgent log and configuration details. Updating the sosreport utility in RHEL versions 7.2 and 7.3 adds the Azure plug-in module.

  2. Using sudo access, enter the following command.

    RHEL 7.2 and later:

    $ sudo sosreport -e azure


    RHEL 6.x and RHEL 7.1:

    $ sudo sosreport


  3. When prompted, enter your first initial and last name.

  4. Enter the support case number. If you do not have this number, request it from your Red Hat or Microsoft support contact. If you do not have access to the support contact, leave the case number blank. If you leave the case number blank, make sure to send the full name of the generated file to your support contact so it can be identified on the FTP site later.

The utility runs and a compressed sosreport archive is generated. The file is saved in the /var/tmp directory for RHEL 7 or /tmp for RHEL 6.

[clouduser@localhost]$ sudo sosreport -e azure

sosreport (version x.x)

This command will collect diagnostic and configuration information from
this Red Hat Enterprise Linux system and installed applications.

An archive containing the collected information will be generated in
/var/tmp/sos.nP9QH1 and may be provided to a Red Hat support
representative.

Any information provided to Red Hat will be treated in accordance with
the published support policies at:

https://access.redhat.com/support/

The generated archive may contain data considered sensitive and its
content should be reviewed by the originating organization before being
passed to any third party.

No changes will be made to system configuration.

Press ENTER to continue, or CTRL-C to quit.

Please enter your first initial and last name []:
Please enter the case id that you are generating this report for []:

Setting up archive ...
Setting up plugins ...
Running plugins. Please wait ...
Running 90/90: yum...            
Creating compressed archive...

Your sosreport has been generated and saved in:
/var/tmp/sosreport-clouduser.[case-number]-20170103113755.tar.xz

The checksum is: 28139a9858dd8972a52dd0bae2336a57

Please send this file to your support representative.

Submitting the sosreport Archive to Red Hat Support

Once the sosreport archive has been generated, submit the compressed sosreport archive to Red Hat Support.

Use the Red Hat FTP site to securely upload the file to Red Hat Support. Refer to How to provide files to Red Hat Support for Secure FTP instructions.

Note: If you left the case number blank, make sure to send the full name of the file to your support contact so it can be easily identified on the FTP site.

Useful sosreport Options

The sosreport utility uses many individual plug-in modules that check and report on each different part of a running RHEL system configuration.

List plug-in modules

Enter the -l command option to get a list of all plug-in modules.

$ sudo sosreport -l

Run sosreport in verbose mode

The sosreport utility does not run in verbose mode by default. To see the work being completed by the utility or for troubleshooting, use the -v option.

$ sudo sosreport -v

Skip a plug-in module

If a plug-in is not working and causes sosreport to hang or fail, you can use the -n option to skip the plug-in. (Note that you would first use sosreport -v to see the point where sosreport hangs or fails.) For example, to skip the plug-in that reports on yum, enter the following option.

$ sudo sosreport -n yum

You can also skip multiple plug-ins by separating each entry with a comma.

$ sudo sosreport -n xfs,xinitd,yum

Use plug-in options

Certain plug-ins have additional options that allow you to get more details about that part of the system. Use the -k option and specify the plug-in option. The following plug-in option adds the list of repositories to the sosreport archive.

$ sudo sosreport -k yum.yumlist

Change the default save location

To save the sosreport archive in a location other than the default directory, use the --tmp-dir option as shown below.

$ sudo mkdir /root/sos
$ sudo sosreport --tmp-dir /root/sos/

To get additional information about the sosreport utility and other command options, refer to the sosreport man page.

Comments