Recovering YaST logs after a failed installation attempt

Novell NTS has asked for YaST2 logs after a failed installation attempt.

1. Start the installation and proceed to the failure
2. Once the failure happens, hit SHIFT-F8 & save the logs when prompted.  If not prompted, hit CTRL-ALT-F2 to reach a terminal
3. Save the logs using the "save_y2logs" command.
   save_y2logs /tmp/y2logs.tgz
4. Pick one of the log recovery methods
5. If requested, obtain additional logs as instructed

1. Test to see if you can do a network transfer
   ifconfig eth0
   If network transfer can be done output may be similar to:
   

   eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1A:4B:B7:31:13
   inet addr:10.0.0.1 Bcast:10.0.0.255 Mask:255.255.252.0
   UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
   RX packets:10391609 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
   TX packets:1509514 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
   collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
   RX bytes:7441707132 (7096.9 Mb) TX bytes:151197714 (144.1 Mb)
   

   An IP address may or may not be assigned, If you see output for eth0, then you may do a network based transfer of the log files.
2. Select a method for assigning an IP address if one is not present
   • When a DHCP Server exists
     dhcpcd eth0
   • Static Assignment for transfer within same subnet
     ifconfig eth0 NETADDRESS broadcast BROADCAST_ADDRESS
   • Static Assignment for transfer outside the the subnet
     ifconfig eth0 NETADDRESS broadcast BROADCAST_ADDRESS
     route add default gw ROUTER_IP_ADDRESS netmask BROADCAST_ADDRESS
3. Ping the target to make sure that it is setup correctly
   ping 10.0.0.10
4. Transfer methods
   • SSH (Recommended between Linux hosts)
     scp /tmp/y2logs.tgz USER@host:/LOCATION/name
   • Transfer to Samba Share or Windows Server
     mount -t cifs //IPADDRESS/share /mnt -o username=USER
     cp /tmp/y2logs.tgz /mnt
     umount /mnt
   • NFS to Linux or UNIX server
     mount -t nfs IPADDRESS:/share /mnt
     cp /tmp/y2logs.tgz /mnt
     umount /mnt
5. Retrieve the logs from the remote server

• The computer must have USB drive capabilities
• The USB drive must be formatted with a FAT, VFAT, EXT2, EXT3, ReiserFS, XFS, FAT, or VFAT file systems. Other filesystems, in particular NTFS, are not suitable.
  

1. Load the USB kernel modules
   modprobe usb-storage
2. Plug the USB drive in the computer
3. Determine what device it is
   dmesg
   Example:
   USB Mass Storage support registered.

   scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access CRUCIAL USB Flash Disk 2.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2

   ready

   sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] 1017856 512-byte hardware sectors (521 MB)

   sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off

   sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00

   sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through

   sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] 1017856 512-byte hardware sectors (521 MB)

   sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off

   sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00

   sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through

   sdd: sdd1 <-- THIS IS THE DEVICE NAME

   sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk

   sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0

   usb-storage: device scan complete

   Look for the kernel device name, in this case, /dev/sdd, with a partition on /dev/sdd1
4. Mount the volume
   mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt
5. Copy the file over
   cp /tmp/y2logs.tgz /mnt
6. Dismount the volume
   umount /mnt
7. Remove the USB drive and examine the logs another another computer
   

• /var/log/messages
• Hardware information (the file after -log is the name of the file)
  hwinfo -log /tmp/hwinfo.log
• Kernel messages output (the file after > is name of the file)
  dmesg > /tmp/dmesg.log