Dell Networking SONiC OS How to generate a Tech-support in 3.X releases

Table of content

• What is Tech-support File?
• How to Generate a Tech-support File
• Location of Tech-support File
• How to Retrieve Tech-support File From the Switch
  • USB
  • Remote SCP Server
  • SCP Client application
• Tech-support File Name Format
• How to Restrict the Old Entries and Reduce the Size of Tech-support File
• Delete Old Tech-support File to Save Space

What is a tech-support File

The tech-support file is a compressed archive file consisting of information about the state of the switch like Syslog, database state, so on. Dell Technical support agents need a tech-support file for detailed analysis.

• Try to generate tech-support file in problem state
• The tech-support file is a compressed file and is saved in /var/dump
• Tech-support file has ".tar.gz" extension
• Tech-support file generation may take longer than 15-30 Mins depending upon the log duration

How to Generate a Tech-support File

Command Syntax

Sample output

admin@DELLSONiC:~$ sonic-cli
DELLSONiC#
DELLSONiC# show tech-support
Output stored in:  /var/dump/sonic_dump_DELLSONiC_20230419_043803.tar.gz
DELLSONiC#

Exit to Dell SONiC Command-Line Interface to Check the tech-support file generated and delete old tech-support files.

DELLSONiC#
DELLSONiC# exit
admin@DELLSONiC:~$

Location of Tech-support File

The tech-support file is saved in /var/dump.

admin@DELLSONiC:~$ dir /var/dump/
sonic_dump_DELLSONiC_20230419_043803.tar.gz
admin@DELLSONiC:~$ 

How to Retrieve Tech-support File from the Switch

You can copy the tech-support file to a remote SFTP/SCP server, any SCP application like WINSCP or a USB inserted in the switch. We are mentioning three methods below.

USB
Use USB with FAT32 format.
Sample output

admin@DELLSONiC:~$sudo mkdir /mnt/usb
admin@DELLSONiC:~$sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb
admin@DELLSONiC:~$sudo cp /var/dump/sonic_dump_DELLSONiC_20230419_043803.tar.gz /mnt/usb/sonic_dump_DELLSONiC_20230419_043803.tar.gz

Command Syntax

Remote SCP Server
For copying to a remote SCP server, use the following syntax:

scp /var/dump/sonic_dump_DELLSONiC_20230419_043803.tar.gz username@<Ip address or hostname of scp server>:/<path>

admin@DELLSONiC:~$ scp /var/dump/sonic_dump_DELLSONiC_20230419_043803.tar.gz username@10.0.0.1:/home/admin/                       
username@10.0.0.1's password:

SCP Client application
You may use any SCP client applications to extract tech-support file in the switch.
Use Switch login credentials in the SCP client application to log in to switch. The tech-support file is located in Directory /var/dump/.
Some SCP client applications have a graphical interface which makes it even easier to copy a file from switch /var/dump/ to a location in your local machine.

Tech-support File Name Format

The tech-support file has a name in format.

sonic_dump_<Hostname>_ _YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.tar.gz

For example, sonic_dump_DELLSONiC_20230419_043803.tar.gz is the generated tech-support file where YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS is 20230419_043803 and DELLSONiC is the hostname of the switch.

How to Restrict the Old Entries and Reduce the Size of Tech-support File

The tech-support file may be a large file based on the switch uptime. We can reduce the size of the tech-support by reducing the amount of Syslog by using the since option.

show tech-support since <date/time>

Format of date and time
"YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS[.ddd...]Z" or
"YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS[.ddd...]+hh:mm" or
"YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS[.ddd...]-hh:mm" Where:

YYYY = year, MM = month, DD = day,
T (required before time),
HH = hours, MM = minutes, SS = seconds,
(optional) .ddd... = decimal fraction of a second (for example ".323")
Z indicates a zero offset from local time.
+/- hh:mm indicates hour:minute offset from local time.

For Example

DELLSONiC# show tech-support since "2023-04-18T19:31:00Z"
Output stored in: /var/dump/sonic_dump_DELLSONiC_20230419_043803.tar.gz

It is recommended to capture up to the 0 hours of the day before for any possible preemptive actions before the event.

DELLSONiC# show tech-support since "2023-04-18T00:00:00Z"

Delete Old Tech-support File to Save Space

We can safely delete the tech-support file or the dump folder after extracting the file from the switch. If a new tech-support file must be generated, a new dump folder is created in var.

To removing specific file use:

sudo rm /var/dump/<techsupportfile>.tar.gz

Sample output

admin@DELLSONiC:~$ ^C
admin@DELLSONiC:~$ sudo rm -r /var/dump/sonic_dump_DELLSONiC_20230419_043803.tar.gz
admin@DELLSONiC:~$

To remove /var/dump folder:

sudo rm -r /var/dump

Sample output

admin@DELLSONiC:~$ sudo rm -r /var/dump
admin@DELLSONiC:~$

Checking
admin@DELLSONiC:~$ ls /var/dump
ls: cannot access '/var/dump': No such file or directory
admin@DELLSONiC:~$