Collecting logs for NetIQ tech support issues

It can be a little confusing for a new Sentinel user when he\she is asked to collect troubleshooing information for their issue.  These steps were created to help make the process a bit easier.

Q:   How do I gather logs\information for my support request if I’m running Sentinel on a SuSE OS?

A:   There is a Novell proprietary tool named supportconfig that we use to gather logs and system information.  There is also a log directory that is typically zipped and sent to NetIQ support. 

·         Download and install the supportutils-plugin-sentinel.   The purpose of the supportutils-plugin-sentinel is to collect additional data specific to Sentinel whenever the SupportConfig tool is run.  supportutils-plugin-sentinel must be installed prior to running the SupportConfig tool.

links for the supportutils-plugin-sentinel

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Novell:/NTS/SLE_10/noarch/supportutils-plugin-sentinel-1.0.1-7.1.noarch.rpm

or

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Novell:/NTS/SLE_11_SP1/noarch/supportutils-plugin-sentinel-1.0.1-7.1.noarch.rpm

·         Once you have downloaded the correct supportutils-plugin-sentinel for your SuSE OS version, run the command: rpm –Uvh supportutils-plugin-sentinel-1.0.1-7.1.noarch.rpm to install the plugin. 

·         Confirm the supportutils-plugin-sentinel is installed by running the following command. 

             rpm –qa | grep “sentinel”  

·         Go to https://www.novell.com/communities/node/2332/supportconfig-linux \installation instructions to the update (option A) or download (option B) and update or install the supportconfig tool.    The purpose of the supportConfig tool is to collect information on the OS specifications, health of the box, Sentinel log files (first 500 lines of each log), etc. 

·         If you want to run this tool and have it attach the resulting file directly to your SR use the following command.   supportconfig -ur SrnumberHere.   By default, supportconfig saves its information in /var/log/nts_hostname_date_time.tbz

·         In case support needs more logging information than what is provided by the support config tool it is recommended to also zip and send the /var/opt/novell/sentinel/log  directory.  

·         Gather as much information as possible concerning Sentinel configuration, Sentinel and OS version, hardware specifications, etc.

·         Include information such as when the issue started occurring, recent OS updates, recent sentinel updates, network or hardware changes\updates, etc.

·         Send NetIQ support the /var/opt/novell/sentinel/log directory.

·         Gather as much information as possible concerning Sentinel configuration, Sentinel and OS versions, specifications, etc.