How To Collect an Sosreport on Oracle Linux

APPLIES TO:

Reference from Oracle Doc ID 1500235.1
Linux OS - Version Oracle Linux 4.4 and later
Oracle VM - Version 3.2.7 to 3.2.7 [Release OVM32]
Information in this document applies to any platform.

GOAL

The "sosreport" is a tool to collect troubleshooting data on an Oracle Linux system. It generates a compressed tarball of debugging information that gives an overview of the most important logs and configuration of a Linux system, to be sent to Oracle Support.

Among other things, the sosreport includes information about the installed rpm versions, syslog, network configuration, mounted filesystems, disk partition details, loaded kernel modules and status of all services

It has a plugin-based architecture that enables features to be enabled or disabled, and additional functionality added.

Why support needs sosreport

The sosreport collects system information from an Oracle Linux system by capturing various log files, configuration files and command outputs that helps in diagnosing a problem faster.

Since this collects most of the commonly sort information while troubleshooting problems, collecting a sosreport helps in reducing the number of iterations of data request from the customer.

The logs, configuration files and related command outputs provides a better picture about the system environment and thus it is very helpful for cases about Root cause analysis and on going issues.

The sosreport helps the support to identify configuration errors and make proactive recommendations too.

SOLUTION

Main Content

To run sosreport, the package "sos" must be installed. This is usually installed by default, unless the system was installed with a custom package set. If it is not installed, it can be installed from ULN with up2date, the public Oracle Linux repository or from installation media. It is also a good idea to make sure it is up to date.

To create the sosreport can be as simple as running the command in a terminal, without arguments, as root:

# sosreport

It will ask for some information related to a support case:

# sosreport

sosreport (version 1.7)

This utility will collect some detailed  information about the
hardware and  setup of your  Enterprise Linux  system.
The information is collected and an archive is  packaged under
/tmp, which you can send to a support representative.
This information will be used for diagnostic purposes ONLY
and it will be considered confidential information.

This process may take a while to complete.
No changes will be made to your system.

Press ENTER to continue, or CTRL-C to quit.
Please enter your first initial and last name [testsystem-2]: jdoe
Please enter the case number that you are generating this report for: 3-1234567890

 and will then show a progress bar with estimated time:

 Progress [#                  3%                  ][00:33/19:54]

 On completion, a bzip2-compressed tarball will be created in /tmp, along with a file containing the md5sum so that the file's integrity can be verified by the support representative. The filename will be printed to the terminal:

Progress [###################100%##################][03:15/03:15]

Creating compressed archive...

Your sosreport has been generated and saved in:
  /tmp/sosreport-jdoe.3123456789-182843-6a3d9a.tar.bz2

The md5sum is: 17be8be4266b06efd9726825ff6a3d9a

Please send this file to your support representative.

It is possible to have the sosreport created somewhere other than /tmp by setting the TMPDIR environment variable when running the sosreport command:

# TMPDIR=/home/jdoe sosreport

Your sosreport has been generated and saved in:
  /home/jdoe/sosreport-jdoe.31234567890-904562-30011c.tar.bz2

Additional options:

To list available plugins:

# sosreport -l

sosreport (version 1.7)

The following plugins are currently enabled:

 apache          Apache related information
 autofs          autofs server-related information
 bootloader      Bootloader information
 devicemapper    device-mapper related information (dm, lvm, multipath)
 emc             EMC related information (PowerPath, Solutions Enabler CLI and Navisphere CLI)
 filesys         information on filesystems
 general         basic system information
 hardware        hardware related information
 ipsec           ipsec related information
 kernel          kernel related information
 ldap            LDAP related information
 libraries       information on shared libraries
 mail            mail server related information
 memory          memory usage information
 networking      network related information
 nfsserver       NFS server-related information
 pam             PAM related information
 printing        printing related information (cups)
 process         process information
 rpm             RPM information
 samba           Samba related information
 sendmail        sendmail information
 ssh             ssh-related information
 startup         startup information
 system          core system related information
 systemtap       SystemTap pre-requisites information
 x11             X related information
 xen             Xen related information
 yum             yum information

The following plugins are currently disabled:

 amd               Amd automounter information
 cluster           cluster suite and GFS related information
 ftp               FTP server related information
 initrd            initrd related information
 named             named related information
 openswan          ipsec related information
 radius            radius related information
 rhn               RHN Satellite related information
 s390              s390 related information
 selinux           selinux related information
 squid             squid related information
 xinetd            xinetd information

The following plugin options are available:

 devicemapper.lvmdump  off collect raw metadata from PVs
 general.syslogsize    15 max size (MiB) to collect per syslog file
 kernel.modinfo        on gathers module information on all modules
 kernel.sysrq          off trigger sysrq+[m,p,t] dumps
 networking.traceroute off collects a traceroute to linux.oracle.com
 rpm.rpmq              on queries for package information via rpm -q
 rpm.rpmva             on runs a verify on all packages
 yum.yumlist           off list repositories and packages

If the system has a lot of packages installed, and sosreport takes a long time to complete, support may request that you disable the rpm database verification (verifies all packaged files on the filesystem against the rpm database)

# sosreport -k rpm.rpmva=off

In older versions of sosreport, the kernel.sysrq option was enabled by default. On heavily loaded systems, this can take a long time and can cause problems; particularly on clustered systems where it may cause a node eviction. It may be wise to check if this option is disabled by default on your system, or to manually disable it when running sosreport:

# sosreport -k kernel.sysrq=off

 For further information, see the manual page man sosreport or the help text sosreport --help

Known issues

1. In earlier versions, sosreport could fail with:

#  /usr/sbin/sosreport -k rpm.rpmva=off -n kernel.sysrq
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/sbin/sosreport", line 31, in <module>
 import sos.policyredhat
ImportError: No module named sos.policyredhat

This usually occurs when a 3rd-party version of python is installed and has been fixed in version 1.7-6 and newer

2. Run sosreport may change the /usr/java/latest symbolic link

sosreport (or rpm -Va, by default part of a sosreport) may change /usr/java/latest symbolic link if it does not point to latest installed release (Doc ID 1597124.1)

REFERENCES

NOTE:1597124.1 - sosreport (or rpm -Va, by default part of a sosreport) may change /usr/java/latest symbolic link if it does not point to latest installed release