Red Hat System Administration I

If currently working as a non-root user, switch to root.

[student@serverX ~]$ su -
Password: redhat

Run the sosreport command. This may take many minutes on larger systems.

[root@serverX ~]# sosreport

sosreport (version 3.0)

  This command will collect system configuration and
diagnostic information from this Red Hat Enterprise Linux
system. An archive containing the collected information
will be generated in /var/tmp and may be provided to a Red
Hat support representative or used for local diagnostic or
recording purposes.

  Any information provided to Red Hat will be treated in
strict confidence in accordance with the published support
policies at:

    https://access.redhat.com/support/

  The generated archive may contain data considered
sensitive and its content should be reviewed by the
originating organization before being passed to any third party.

  No changes will be made to system configuration.

Press ENTER to continue, or CTRL-C to quit. ENTER

Please enter your first initial and last name [serverX.example.com]: yourname
Please enter the case number that you are generating this report for: 01034421

Press Enter. Provide the requested information. Make up a value for the case number.

Running 17/74: general...
Creating compressed archive...

Your sosreport has been generated and saved in:
  /var/tmp/sosreport-yourname.01034421-20140129000049.tar.xz

The checksum is: b2e78125290a4c791162e68da8534887

Please send this file to your support representative.

Change directory to /var/tmp, and unpack the archive.

[root@serverX ~]# cd /var/tmp
[root@serverX tmp]# tar -xvJf sosreport-*.tar.xz

Change directory to the resulting subdirectory and browse the files found there.

[root@serverX tmp]# cd sosreport-yourname.01034421-20140129000049
[root@serverX sosreport-yourname.01034421-20140129000049]# ls -lR

Open files, list directories, and continue to browse to become familiar with the information included in SoS reports. In the form of the original archived and compressed file, this is the diagnostic information you would be attaching to a redhat-support-tool support case. When finished, remove the archive directory and files and return to your home directory.

[root@serverX sosreport-yourname.01034421-20140129000049]# cd /var/tmp
[root@serverX tmp]# rm -rf sosreport*
[root@serverX tmp]# exit
[student@serverX ~]$