How I’ve learned the hard way to collect support bundles on the CLI
It is a standard procedure to generate a support bundle after any changes on your DataCore SANSymphony-Cluster. Usually you’d click the Cluster Object in the Datacore-Console and select “upload support bundle”. You just enter the customer’s name, an incident ID and select your choice of Mini-, Standard- or Full-Bundle. The collection will be initiated on both hosts simultaneously. Files will be archived as ZIP and (if there’s an internet connection) uploaded to DataCore Support.
Single-Host Collection
Sometimes it might not be possible to collect bundles from both servers or you may not want to trigger a log-collection on both hosts simultaneously.
Why?
Believe it or not – I’ve witnessed a double BSOD and double failure on a Datacore-cluster, which was triggered by log-bundle collection. Something you wouldn’t want to see on a bright afternoon, except you like spending a night-out with DataCore support staff. There used to be a distinct combination of Datacore-software (PSP6 U1), and a NVM-PCIe-Flash-Disk Firmware that led to double-failure, leaving a frozen vSphere-Cluster with APD. That wasn’t a coincidence. We could easily reproduce it (as good scientific practice), because support did not believe it in the first place. 😉
Since that fine day (and night) I’ve learned how to collect bundles on a single hosts first, before I dare to do it in the GUI.
As my personal stand operation procedure (SOP), I stop one DataCore server and test bundle-collection by CLI. If the host is still alive afterwards, everything is fine. If not – then you’ll be lucky to have still one functional DataCore host remaining.
Call me paranoid, but a burnt child dreads the fire. 🙂
How to produce the bundle on the CLI
Open a commandline window on the DataCore host you’re going to collect bundles from and change directory to your SANsymphony installation path.
cd "c:\Program Files\DataCore\SANsymphony" DcsSupportBundle.exe /b:Standard /i:<incident-number> /co:"<customer>" /s
For example, if your incident number is 160822-000123 and your customer’s name is MyBiz ltd, your command would look like:
DcsSupportBundle.exe /b:Standard /i:160822-000123 /co:"MyBiz ltd" /su
Option /b defines the type of bundle (Mini, Standard or Full). Option /su prevents automatic upload to DataCore support.