ITM Agent Insights: Collecting data for the ITM UNIX Agent V6

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This blog will provide information for gathering data for the ITM Unix Agent.  Collecting Data documents aid in problem determination and save time resolving Problem Management Records (PMRs).

Collecting Data information early, even before opening the PMR, helps IBM® Support quickly determine if:
- Symptoms match known problems (rediscovery).
- There is a non-defect problem that can be identified and resolved.
- There is a defect that identifies a workaround to reduce severity.
- Locating root cause can speed development of a code fix.

Gathering General Information:

For IBM Tivoli Monitoring UNIX Agent v6 or later, you can use the IBM Support Assistant (ISA) to capture general information.  Alternatively you can manually collect general information from the environment.

Entering general information into an electronically-opened PMR (SR) eliminates waiting on the phone to provide general information to Level 1 support.

Since the ITM UNIX Agent is enabled with default RAS (Reliability, Accessibility and Serviceability) settings.  If you do not know what the problem is then collecting the general agent logs and configuration files are helpful to IBM Support in further isolating the problem.  For these instances see the section on manually collecting information and send the data with the default trace settings.

Gathering Component Specific Information:

There are several components that can be involved in a problem with the UNIX Agent.  This section will detail the common component areas and some trace settings that can be helpful in isolating issues related to the UNIX Agent.  These trace settings are suggested but will not isolate every problem scenario.  You can provide the logs with the default trace settings and IBM Support will review these logs and suggest additional trace settings based on information in the logs.

ITM UNIX Agent V6 and Related Components:

UNIX Agent
  -  Update the UNIX Agent environment file:
        . <install path>/config/ux.ini
  -  Some helpful RAS trace levels include:
        . KBB_RAS1=ERROR (UNIT:kux ALL) (UNIT:kra ALL) (UNIT:kdsfilt ALL)
  -  Restart the agent

Tivoli Enterprise Management Server (TEMS)
  -  See technote - http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?&uid=swg21269622

Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server (TEPS)
  -  See technote - http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21297524

Once the component traces have been set and the components have been restarted, then recreate the problem and collect the logs.  

Collector Tool:

ITM 6.2 or higher provides a tool that collects problem determination data - pdcollect.  This tool, pdcollect, is available for Linux, UNIX, Windows and it provides the capability to collect the necessary logs and other PD information requested by IBM Support.

Once the you have collected the PD information with pdcollect, this information should be uploaded to IBM using the steps provided in the Exchanging information with IBM Technical Support link:
http://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/739283

Gathering General Information:

This section details how to manually collect information from a system running the UNIX Agent.

From a command prompt collect this:
- #export CANDLEHOME=<install path>
- #export PATH=$PATH:$CANDLEHOME/bin
- #cinfo -t > /tmp/itm61_ux_install.out

Collect the UNIX Agent data
- $CANDLEHOME/logs/*ux*
- $CANDLEHOME/logs/*UX*
- $CANDLEHOME/config/ux*

Additional Information for the Unix Agent:
- Operating system and level
- Hostname and IP address
- netstat -a
- Firewall configuration information (if applicable)
- Operating system error log messages (if applicable)
- AIX - errpt -a
- Solaris - /var/adm/messages*

If using Service Request (SR), update the PMR to indicate that data has been sent. 

https://www-947.ibm.com/support/servicerequest/Home.action

If you are using the IBM Support Assistant (ISA) tool then it will allow you to upload data to IBM Support.

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/support/isa/

Additional ITM Agent Insights series of IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent blogs are indexed under ITM Agent Insights: Introduction.

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