Reference Guide for Engaging with Red Hat Support

Support Reference Guides

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About Red Hat Support

Red Hat Support works in a collaborative way, often referred to as a Swarming Model. This enables the most appropriate engineers from different teams to collaborate on a case, no matter where they may be worldwide, so that we can resolve your problem more efficiently.

In order to enable this worldwide collaboration, Support Cases are mainly conducted in English. However, we have local language support in many regions.

Depending on the severity of the issue and the support level purchased, we use a 24x7 process with transitions between teams located across the world. For these cases, English is the only supported language.

Download the brochure "Reference Guide for Engaging with Red Hat Support" (also attached below).

What are the recommendations for a better support experience?

Use all the fields in a case properly

• Title: Summarize the issue in one sentence
• Product: Select the exact product and version that is presenting the issue
• Severity: Correctly select the priority of the issue according to Red Hat Support Severity Level Definitions.
  • Selecting a higher severity when the problem does not meet the requirements may lead to a severity renegotiation, which will slow down the support process.
• Description: describe the problem:
  • Explain what happened
  • What was observed (screen, console, etc)
  • Explain the environment (connectivity, storage, etc)
  • Explain any recent changes (for example software upgrade, hardware changes, storage maintenance, etc)
  • What is your estimate of the date and time the event occurred?
  • How frequently is this issue occurring?
  • Has encountered a similar issue on this system or others in the past?
  • Explain how this problem is affecting your business (for example: main web server, mail server, or just a secondary lab system, etc)

Provide as much information as possible

• Depending on the product, attach relevant logs:
  • RHEL
    • sosreport
    • If related hang, panic, or other type of crash present, then provide a vmcore:
      • How to troubleshoot kernel crashes, hangs, or reboots
      • Collecting system information for hangs
      • How to use the SysRq facility to collect information
  • RHEV
    • rhevm logcollector
  • Satellite5
    • spacewalk-debug
  • Satellite6-Foreman/SAM
    • sosreport
  • JBoss
    • jdr
    • Information Relevant to Middleware Cases
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Openstack Platform
    • Collect All applicable logs
  • Red Hat Ceph Storage
    • Master Article for Red Hat Ceph Storage Troubleshooting
    • Information to collect while debugging/opening a Red Hat Ceph case
  • Red Hat Gluster Storage
    • Specific debug data that needs to be collected for GlusterFS components to help troubleshoot ing
  • Red Hat OpenShift
    • Troubleshooting OpenShift Container Platform 4: Basics
    • Troubleshooting OpenShift Container Platform 3: Basics
  • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
    • What information should I provide when opening a support case for Ansible Automation Platform?
• If there are any extra logs or messages, attach them to the case or upload to our FTP server (screenshots, vmcore, etc)
  • For any files uploaded to the FTP server, please follow the instructions in How to provide large files to Red Hat Support

Keep the case lifecycle going!

• It is important not only to upload the files, but to answer additional questions from our engineers
  • This helps to narrow down the issues or symptoms
• If the case is 24x7, please ensure you have supplied equivalent 24x7 contact details for your team (phone, email, etc)
  • Clearly state these in the ticket and add your contact details to your Red Hat Portal user details.
  • If a 24x7 case is not updated by your 24x7 team, the 24x7 flag may be dropped, and the case returned to your home timezone hours.
  • There will be engineers around the world working on the 24x7 ticket, please ensure that updates are in English to avoid delays in solving the issue due to translation efforts.

Take Proactive Steps Before a Problem Is Seen

• Red Hat maintains a knowledge base with updated information about known issues.
  • Follow topics relevant to your systems using the document type and product filters at https://access.redhat.com/solutions
  • These documents can provide useful insights for day to day systems administration.
• Using the resolution from your issue, a document will be created or updated to help others solve the same issue faster in the future.

General recommendations

• Be aware of the security rules for your organization
  • Every customer defines their own concept of Sensitive Data in direct relation to data they hold.
  • We have guidance on how to identify and secure sensitive data in How do I protect my information when sending data to Red Hat?
• If the issue is urgent, it is recommended to call support after opening the case.
• In the interest of clarity and focus Red Hat requests that customers focus on a single issue to resolve per support case. If you are experiencing multiple issues then Red Hat requests that you open up one case per issue so that we can assign the right resources for each issue to each individual case.
• If possible, do not reboot the server or restart the service before contacting Red Hat support
  • This is because sometimes, it is necessary to capture information while the problem is happening.
• Ensure that kdump is configured on all of your systems
  • Instances of crashed kernels can rarely be resolved without this information
  • Test your kdump configuration before you have a problem.