Collecting data for initial investigation of UCS

B Series issues
Contents
Introduction
Prerequisites
Requirements
When should data be collected
What data should be collected
What Tech Support bundles should be collected
UCS B-Series issues
UCS C-Series Integrated Servers
Operating System Tech Support Data
VMWare ESXi
Red Hat Linux based products
SUSE Linux based products
Microsoft Windows
Other considerations when collecting UCS Tech Support bundles

Introduction
This document describes common data that Cisco TAC would request for investigation of UCS
related Service Requests.

You can substantially reduce the time taken for initial identification of the issue by attaching such
data to the Service Request when it is opened

The absence of data collected at the time of an issue may make it impossible for Cisco TAC to
provide a definitive explanation of why a particular issue occurred

Prerequisites
This document assumes you have admin level access to the UCS GUI/CLI to generate the
required Tech Support bundles

Requirements

Cisco recommends that you have knowledge of these topics:

Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) Manager

Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) Manager Command Line Interface (CLI)
When should data be collected
Cisco generally advises to generate relevant data as soon as it is suspected TAC engagement
may be desired/requested.

This is to avoid critical log files no longer covering the time of interest, typically seen in larger or
rapidly changing environments, including where reboots of Fabric Interconnects have occurred

Cisco TAC would typically advise in the case of multiple Tech Supports being required that UCSM
Tech Support is generated prior to Chassis or other Tech Support files, as it is the most time
critical and also is the most time consuming to generate.

What data should be collected

Other than Tech Support bundles, critical data about the problem that should be collected may
include:

Date/Time of Issue
●

Affected Servers or Service Profiles

●

Any errors seen at the time of issue, especially screenshots of any PSOD/BSOD/Kernel Panic
●

screens
Any changes performed at the time or in the recent past
●

What actions, if any, had been performed to troubleshoot the issue or recover service
●

OS Type and version

●

VIC Driver versions i.e. ENIC/NENIC/FNIC versions

●

RAID Controller Driver versions

●

Information on any suspected trigger conditions such as load, nightly backup/maintenance

●

tasks etc.
Basic overview of Topology, such as upstream Ethernet or SAN switches, Storage Arrays etc.
●

Upload any core files shown in UCS Manager around the time of the issue
●

However, any other data you believe is an important factor in the situation can also be included

What Tech Support bundles should be collected

Typically Cisco TAC would request the following Tech Support bundles as a starting point:

UCS B-Series issues

UCSM Tech Support

Chassis Tech Support covering affected servers.

UCS C-Series Integrated Servers

UCSM Tech Support

FEX Tech Support covering affected servers

Rack Server Tech Support

Providing Chassis/FEX/Rack Tech Supports from similar but unaffected servers may also be
useful

Operating System Tech Support Data

In situations where you believe that OS Tech Support data may be useful for Cisco TAC analysis
in the case of interoperability issues, the following can be provided as a starting point:

VMWare ESXi

vm-support

Red Hat Linux based products

sosreport

SUSE Linux based products

supportconfig

Microsoft Windows

Application and System Event Logs in evt or evtx file formats

Output of 'systeminfo' or similar

Other considerations when collecting UCS Tech Support

bundles
Where possible you should not combine multiple Tech Support bundles into a single larger file

UCS Tech Supports are already extensively compressed, despite the .tar extension of the final file.

However, if other large data files are not compressed, compressing using standard formats
(zip/gz/bz2/7z etc.) is recommended.

Unless explicitly instructed, please avoid usage of the 'Exclude Commands' option in Tech
Support files or supplying ucsm-mgmt rather than full UCSM Tech Support bundles

If a blade or rack server has experienced a PSOD/BSOD/Kernel Panic, please reboot the server
using the Reset options in UCSM, not Shutdown then Boot of the server.

This causes extra information to be generated for troubleshooting which is then included in Tech
Support bundles.