Holy Supportconfig File
Let’s talk about Supportutils tool? Sure thing, why not!
As a Technical Support Engineer in SUSE, I rely heavily on Supportutils tool which generates a file with all the configurations and logs of the system, the Holy Supportconfig File. Frankly, my job would be much more difficult without this little eminent tool and it took me a while to get to know how to properly use it, let’s have a look.
WHERE
First thing first, where do I find the tool? Supportutils package and YaST Module “yast2-support” are shipped with our SLES OSs:
root:~ # zypper se supportutils yast2-support Loading repository data... Reading installed packages... S | Name | Summary | Type --+----------------------------+-------------------------------------+----------- i | supportutils | Support Troubleshooting Tools | package | supportutils | Support Troubleshooting Tools | srcpackage i | yast2-support | Configuration of nts support tools | package
WHAT
Official documentation about the usage of this tool and YaST Module can be found here.
Supportutils is a tool to collect all the info of a system into a compressed file called Supportconfig File.
WHY
Needless to say, the Holy Supportconfig File is necessary for the Support Team to troubleshoot the customers/partners problems, it is usually needed when there is a PROBLEM!
The first thing that a Technical Support Engineer would ask when summoned for troubleshooting an issue on any of the SUSE Products is, indeed, a Supportconfig File.
HOW
Second thing second, check the manual! All the options and information are listed there: the tool can generate the Supportconfig File with the default settings, it can generate the file and upload it automatically to the Support Team FTP server, it can add contact information to the tarball file like an e-mail address or telephone number, etc., etc.
I usually ask our customers to run the tool with option “-l”:
root:~ # supportconfig -l Gathering system information Data Directory: /var/log/nts_hostname_170416_1021 Basic Server Health Check... Done RPM Database... Done Basic Environment... Done System Modules... Done Memory Details... Done Disk I/O... Done B-tree File System... Skipped YaST Files... Done File System List... Skipped Auditing... Done Crash Info... Done NTP... Done PROC... Done Boot Files... Done [..] Creating Tar Ball ==[ DONE ]=================================================================== Log file tar ball: /var/log/nts_hostname_170416_1021.tbz Log file size: 2.9M Log file md5sum: 1229965fe933dbbec446df5aa6359acb =============================================================================
With this option, the tool generates a compressed file in “/var/log” with all the configurations files, logs and even rotated logs. The file can then be attached to the Service Request via SUSE Customer Center or uploaded to the Support Team FTP server.
Especially when the file is uploaded to the FTP server, it can be very useful to add the Service Request number to the file name, the option “-r” allows to do it:
root:~ # supportconfig -r 12345678901 Gathering system information Data Directory: /var/log/nts_SR12345678901_hostname_170416_1032 Basic Server Health Check... Done RPM Database... Done Basic Environment... Done System Modules... Done [..] System Logs... Done Creating Tar Ball ==[ DONE ]=================================================================== Log file tar ball: /var/log/nts_SR12345678901_hostname_170416_1032.tbz Log file size: 902K Log file md5sum: b01c8b81424a419f1c4ce357d9101559 =============================================================================
The tool has also the possibility to upload automatically the tarball file to the Support Team FTP server, very comfortable:
root:~ # supportconfig -u Gathering system information Data Directory: /var/log/nts_hostname_170416_1038_97825489-dc63-4406-bdd4-8dec628513ff Basic Server Health Check... Done RPM Database... Done Basic Environment... Done [..] Creating Tar Ball ==[ DONE ]=================================================================== Log file tar ball: /var/log/nts_hostname_170416_1038_97825489-dc63-4406-bdd4-8dec628513ff.tbz Log file size: 1.2M Log file md5sum: 529ddd0ed99fb7bad2caa2dc7597a114 ============================================================================= Uploading Tar Ball ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- curl -#T "/var/log/nts_hostname_170416_1038_97825489-dc63-4406-bdd4-8dec628513ff.tbz.md5" "ftp://anonymous@ftp.novell.com/incoming/nts_hostname_170416_1038_97825489-dc63-4406-bdd4-8dec628513ff.tbz.md5" ######################################################################## 100.0% curl -#T "/var/log/nts_hostname_170416_1038_97825489-dc63-4406-bdd4-8dec628513ff.tbz" "ftp://anonymous@ftp.novell.com/incoming/nts_hostname_170416_1038_97825489-dc63-4406-bdd4-8dec628513ff.tbz" ######################################################################## 100.0%
I could continue for ages and go through all the options but I’d like to focus on one in particular, “-C” option. Supportutils has a bunch of default settings and variables which, usually, don’t need to be touched; for example, the details for the FTP server are stored in a variable:
VAR_OPTION_UPLOAD_TARGET='ftp://anonymous@ftp.novell.com/incoming'
All those variables are stored in “/etc/supportconfig.conf” but the file is not automatically generated, the command with option “-C” creates the file and, then, we are able to modify it as needed:
root:~ # less /etc/supportconfig.conf /etc/supportconfig.conf: No such file or directory laura:~ # supportconfig -C [..] Overwriting /etc/supportconfig.conf with default options. root:~ # cat /etc/supportconfig.conf #################################### # Default Options #################################### OPTION_AFP=1 OPTION_APPARMOR=1 OPTION_AUDIT=1 OPTION_AUTOFS=1
Now that the configuration file is created, there are many custom settings that can be implemented depending on the various need to use this tool; one of the most important customization is to exclude certain options to be used during collecting the data from the system, for example, my system is not using Docker and Multipath, i can speed up the process via excluding these two options. I modify the file “/etc/supportconfig.conf” and i change the following entries from:
OPTION_DOCKER=1 OPTION_MPIO=1
To:
OPTION_DOCKER=0 OPTION_MPIO=0
Then I run the tool again, but now it will not collect anything related to Multipath and Docker:
root:~ # supportconfig -l Gathering system information Data Directory: /var/log/nts_hostname_170416_1115 Basic Server Health Check... Done RPM Database... Done Basic Environment... Done [..] Docker... Excluded CRON... Done [..] Multipathing... Excluded
If the systems are locked down in a secure environment, probably there is no access to the external network so Supportutils can be customized to use a different FTP, SCP, HTTPS or HTTP server by changing the variable in “/etc/supportconfig.conf” related to the upload target:
VAR_OPTION_UPLOAD_TARGET='ftp://anonymous@ftp.example.com/incoming'
Then run the command again:
root:~ # supportconfig -u
With “-u”, the tool will pick the destination target, where to upload the Supportconfig File, from the variable above specified in the configuration file.
The command above does the same job of:
root:~ # supportconfig -U ftp://anonymous@ftp.example.com/incoming
As I mentioned previously, I could continue for ages showing all the amazing features and customization of this tool but, for now, let me close with just: Thank You, Holy Supportconfig File.
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Sep 04th, 2023
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