Module Topics

Red Hat Customer Portal
ABRT
sosreport
Netconsole and kdump

Red Hat Customer Portal

Red Hat Customer Portal is accessed via https://access.redhat.com

Provides customers with access to:
- Red Hat support ticketing and reporting system
- Solutions, FAQs, and official product documentation
- Thorough, integrated search
- Rich educational content, including whitepapers, info sheets, and multimedia presentations
- Downloads, updates, and evaluations
- Subscription and account management tools
Public content gives potential customers general information about Red Hat products before purchasing a subscription.
Private content requires a subscription and authentication, and includes:
- Software download areas
- Incident case management reporting tools
- Knowledgebase
- Videos
ISO and package downloads are accessed via a link at the top of each top-level portal page.
Red Hat Network continues to allow customers to manage software they deploy to servers with Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions.

== m13p02_access_rh

In this section you will learn how to access the Red Hat Customer Portal.

Red Hat provides a customer portal where customers can download software and purchase and manage their subscriptions. The portal can be accessed via the following URL: https://access.redhat.com.

The Red Hat Customer Portal provides customers with access to:

Red Hat support ticketing and reporting system
Solutions, FAQs, and official product documentation
Thorough, integrated search
Rich educational content, including whitepapers, info sheets, and multimedia presentations
Downloads, updates, and evaluations
Subscription and account management tools

Some content is public, such as white papers, customer success stories, and documentation for various Red Hat products. Public access content is designed to give potential customers some general information about Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other Red Hat products to help them make a well-informed decision about purchasing a subscription.

Other content is private and requires existing customers with subscriptions to authenticate to access that content. This includes access to software download areas, incident case management reporting tools, and the knowledgebase, an area where Red Hat engineers and customers discuss the steps needed to solve specific problems. Videos are also available from the Red Hat Customer Portal.

ISO and package download functionality were removed from Red Hat Network and integrated with the portal. There is a link at the top of each top-level page in the portal that provides convenient access to Red Hat Network. Red Hat Network continues to allow customers to manage the software they deploy to their servers with Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions.

ABRT

Automatic Bug-Reporting Tool (ABRT) is a daemon that monitors when applications crash.
Collects and stores information about the application, such as:
- Command-line arguments
- Other information about the application
- Memory core dump, if present.
Configure ABRT to do either of the following:
- Automatically send information to a relevant issue tracker
- Store information locally for review and manually report (default behavior)
ABRT is installed and configured to run at boot-time by default.
- If not installed, install abrt package and start abrtd service.
- Use chkconfig abrtd on to configure ABRT to start persistently.
Plugins are available to extend ABRT, such as:
- abrt-plugin-reportuploader - configure to send crash information to a single server for centralized reporting.
ABRT’s global configuration file is /etc/abrt/abrt.conf.
- Plugin configurations are in /etc/abrt/plugins/\*.conf.
- Do not store password information in global configuration files; they are world readable.
- Override global configurations with individual user configurations defined in ~/.abrt/*.conf.

== m13p03_abrt_1

In this section you will learn how to deploy ABRT after installation and to manage crash reports generated by ABRT.

The Automatic Bug-Reporting Tool (ABRT) is a daemon that monitors when applications crash. It collects and stores information about the application, such as command-line arguments, other information about the application, and a memory core dump, if one is present. You can configure ABRT to automatically send this information to a relevant issue tracker, or you can store it locally for review, and then manually report, which is the default behavior.

ABRT is installed and configured to run at boot-time by default. If it is not installed on a system, then install the abrt package and start the abrtd service to activate ABRT. Use chkconfig abrtd on to configure ABRT to start persistently.

Plugins are available to extend ABRT’s capabilities. For example, a useful plugin is abrt-plugin-reportuploader which can be configured to send crash information to a single server for centralized reporting. ABRT’s global configuration file is /etc/abrt/abrt.conf with plugin configurations found in /etc/abrt/plugins/\*.conf. Do not store password information in the global configuration files since they are world readable. Global configurations can be overridden by individual user configurations defined in ~/.abrt/*.conf.

ABRT

abrt-cli

abrt-cli can view, report, and delete stored crash information.

Most commonly used abrt-cli parameters:

abrt-cli --list

Lists basic information about each recorded crash.

abrt-cli --report UUID

Reports the crash information specified by the UUID.

abrt-cli --delete UUID

Deletes the crash information specified by the UUID.

ABRT avoids capturing redundant information from repeated crashes by the same application.
- Compares a current application crash with stored information.
- Until fixed, do not delete crash information with abrt-cli --delete for an application that crashes repeatedly.

References

Automatic Bug-Reporting Tool (ABRT)
abrt-plugins(7) man page

sosreport

sosreport collects system data to help Red Hat Global Support Services and Development solve customer problems.
sosreport gathers as much information as possible, while avoiding:
- Creation of a very large file
- Invasion of user privacy
- Collection of information that could be detrimental to system integrity

Working with sosreport

Install the sos RPM appropriate to your version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
```
[root@server1 ~]# yum -y install sos
... output omitted ...
```

Run sosreport as root from the command line:

[root@server1 ~]# sosreport

sosreport (version 2.2)

This utility will collect some detailed information about the
hardware and setup of your Red Hat Enterprise Linux system.
... output omitted ...

When finished, you will see:

Please enter your first initial and last name [hostname]:
Please enter the case number that you are generating this report for:

sosreport saves a compressed tar file in /tmp.

[root@server1 ~]# ls /tmp/*tar*
sosreport-serverX-20110829065429-4703.tar.xz

View the contents of the file:

[root@server1 ~]# tar tJf /tmp/sosreport-serverX-20110829065429-4703.tar.xz
... output omitted ...

Reference

sosreport(1) man page

== m13p05_sosreport

In this section you will learn how to do the following:

Install the sosreport utility
Use sosreport to capture information about a running system

sosreport is a system utility that collects important system data, in order to assist the Red Hat Global Support Services Team and Development Teams in solving customer problems. sosreport gathers as much system information as possible, while avoiding certain actions: the creation of a very large file; the invasion of the user’s privacy; and the collection of information that could be detrimental to the integrity of the system.

Install the sos RPM appropriate to your version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Run sosreport as root from the command line:
When finished, you will see the following:
sosreport then saves a compressed tar file in /tmp.
View the contents of the file:

netconsole

netconsole sends system console messages to a remote log server when a kernel panic occurs.
Includes register and kernel stack information that helps developers determine what caused the crash.
1. Make sure you have a network logging server configured.
2. On the system that crashes, edit /etc/sysconfig/netconsole:
  1. Uncomment the SYSLOGADDR line
  2. Define it as the hostname or IP address of the system acting as a syslog server:
    # The IP address of the remote syslog server to send messages to # SYSLOGADDR=
    
    # The IP address of the remote syslog server to send messages to SYSLOGADDR=192.168.0. X
  3. Save your changes to the configuration file.
3. Start netconsole and configure it to restart persistently.
  [root@server1 ~]# systemctl enable netconsole [root@server1 ~]# systemctl start netconsole
  This loads a kernel module that sends a syslog message to the host specified by SYSLOGADDR if the system crashes.

== m13p06_netconsole

In this section you will learn how to do the following:

Configure netconsole to transmit kernel crash information to a remote logging server.
Deploy kdump to save system memory during a crash.

sosreport is useful for providing Red Hat with information about a system in which an application has failed and the kernel is still functioning. To diagnose a system where the kernel has crashed, you can use netconsole and kdump.

netconsole sends system console messages to a remote log server when a kernel panic occurs. Kernel panic information includes register and kernel stack information that helps Red Hat kernel developers determine what caused the Linux kernel to crash.

netconsole is very simple to set up on the system that is having problems. Before you get started, you should have a network logging server already configured. This task was covered earlier in this course.
On the system that crashes, edit /etc/sysconfig/netconsole, uncomment the SYSLOGADDR line and define it to be the hostname or IP address of the system acting as a syslog server:
Ater you modify and save the configuration, start the netconsole service and configure it to restart persistently.

This loads a kernel module that sends syslog messages to the host specified by SYSLOGADDR if the system crashes.

kdump

If kernel panic log messages do not provide enough information to diagnose a malfunctioning system, developers may ask for a dump of the system’s memory.
- Customers upload dumps to an FTP server.
- Red Hat’s support engineers download and analyze them.
Collect dump via a capture kernel:
- A small intermediate kernel that recovers system memory and dumps to a file if a crash happens.
- Booting the capture kernel does not involve BIOS.
kdump is used from the capture kernel context to either:
- Copy hardware memory areas to disk.
- Send over a network to another server via SSH.
This is not enabled by default
- Can configure at install time.

== m13p07_kdump_1

In rare cases, the kernel panic log message may not provide enough information for Red Hat developers to diagnose a malfunctioning system. In these cases they may ask for a dump of the system’s memory. These dumps are usually uploaded by the customer to an FTP server so Red Hat’s support engineers can download them.

You can configure the system in such a way that if a crash happens, a small intermediate kernel is executed in order to recover the system memory and dump it to a file. This kernel is called the capture kernel. Booting the capture kernel does not involve BIOS, which makes the whole process fast and reliable. kdump is then used from the capture kernel context to copy hardware memory areas to disk or over a network to a another server via SSH.

This system is not enabled by default, although you can configure it at install time.

kdump

Manually Enable kdump

Do one of the following:
- Run system-config-kdump
- Modify /etc/kdump.conf and enable the kdump service:
  [root@server1 ~]# less /etc/kdump.conf [root@server1 ~]# system-config-kdump

Test the “fast boot” mechanism provided by kexec by executing:

[root@server1 ~]# kver=$(uname -r)
[root@server1 ~]# kexec -l /boot/vmlinuz-$kver --initrd=/boot/initramfs-$kver.img --command-line="$(cat /proc/cmdline)"
[root@server1 ~]# init 6

Watch the end of the system shutdown carefully; this reboots the kernel but skips the BIOS step.

References

The kdump Crash Recovery Service
kdump.conf(5)> and kexec(8) man pages
/usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-*/Documentation/networking/netconsole.txt

Module Completion

Nice job!

Click the button below to complete this module of the course:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Troubleshooting

Red Hat Resources

Module Topics

Red Hat Customer Portal

ABRT

ABRT

`sosreport`

`netconsole`

`kdump`

`kdump`

Module Completion