What is sosreport
The sosreport command is a tool that collects configuration information, system information, and diagnostic information from the system running on the RHEL, CentOS, and Oracle Linux in particular.
This enables the technical support engineer to analyze the system in several aspects.
This reports contain the following information about the system.
- Boot Information
- File System Information
- Memory Details
- Host Name
- List of Installed RPMs
- System IP
- Network Details
- OS Version
- Installed Kernel
- List of loaded Kernel modules
- List of open files
- List of PCI devices
- Mounted devices and it’s details
- Running Process Information
- Process tree output
- System routing
These files are usually located in the /etc directory and in the /var/log directory.
Typically the Linux directory structure contains configuration files under the /etc directory and the log files are located under the /var/log directory.
It may take some time to create a sosport, which depends on your system package installation and configuration.
When finished, it will create a compressed archive file under the /tmp directory.
Whenever you create a case with them for initial analysis you need to attach the sosreport to the Red Hat and Oracle Linux support portal.
This enables the support engineer to perform first level troubleshooting to identify if something is wrong with the system.
How to Install sosreport on RHEL/CentOS/OL Systems
sosreport installation is not a big deal, run the following command to install it as this package is available in the distribution official repository.
For RHEL/CentOS/OL system, use YUM Command to install sosreport.
# yum install sos
For Fedora/RHEL 8/CentOS 8/OL 8 system, use DNF Command to install sosreport.
# dnf install sos
How to Generate sosreport on RHEL/CentOS/OL Systems
Run the sosreport command with no option to create sosreport.
By default it does not show much information when creating a sosreport and only shows how many reports are generated.
If you would like to see more detailed information, add the -v option when creating sosreport.
This will prompt you to enter your name and support case information when you run the sosreport command.
# sosreport sosreport (version 3.2) This command will collect diagnostic and configuration information from this Oracle Linux system and installed applications. An archive containing the collected information will be generated in /tmp/sos.3pt1yJ and may be provided to a Oracle USA support representative. Any information provided to Oracle USA will be treated in accordance with the published support policies at: http://linux.oracle.com/ 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. Please enter your first initial and last name [oracle.2daygeek.com]: 2daygeek Please enter the case id that you are generating this report for []: 3-16619296812 Setting up archive ... Setting up plugins ... dbname must be supplied to dump a database. Running plugins. Please wait ... Running 86/86: yum... [plugin:kvm] could not unmount /sys/kernel/debug Creating compressed archive... Your sosreport has been generated and saved in: /tmp/sosreport-2daygeek.3-16619296812-20180307124921.tar.xz The checksum is: 4e80226ae175bm185c0o2d7u2yoac52o Please send this file to your support representative.
What Kind of Details are in the Archive File?
I’m curious to know what kind of details are in the archive file. To understand this, I’m gonna to extract this archive file on my system.
Use the below tar command to extract the tar archive file.
# tar -xf /tmp/sosreport-2daygeek.3-16619296812-20180307124921.tar.xz
To see what information is captured by sosreport, go to the file extracted directory and view them.
# ls -lh sosreport-2daygeek.3-16619296812-20180307124921 total 60K dr-xr-xr-x 4 root root 4.0K Sep 30 10:56 boot lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Oct 20 07:25 chkconfig -> sos_commands/startup/chkconfig_--list lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 Oct 20 07:25 date -> sos_commands/general/date lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Oct 20 07:25 df -> sos_commands/filesys/df_-al lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Oct 20 07:25 dmidecode -> sos_commands/hardware/dmidecode drwxr-xr-x 43 root root 4.0K Oct 20 07:21 etc lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Oct 20 07:25 free -> sos_commands/memory/free lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Oct 20 07:25 hostname -> sos_commands/general/hostname lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 130 Oct 20 07:25 installed-rpms -> sos_commands/rpm/sh_-c_rpm_--nodigest_-qa_--qf_NAME_-_VERSION_-_RELEASE_._ARCH_INSTALLTIME_date_awk_-F_printf_-59s_s_n_1_2_sort_-f lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 Oct 20 07:25 ip_addr -> sos_commands/networking/ip_-o_addr lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 45 Oct 20 07:25 java -> sos_commands/java/alternatives_--display_java drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4.0K Sep 30 10:56 lib lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Oct 20 07:25 lsb-release -> sos_commands/lsbrelease/lsb_release lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 Oct 20 07:25 lsmod -> sos_commands/kernel/lsmod lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Oct 20 07:25 lsof -> sos_commands/process/lsof_-b_M_-n_-l lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 Oct 20 07:25 lspci -> sos_commands/pci/lspci lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Oct 20 07:25 mount -> sos_commands/filesys/mount_-l lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 38 Oct 20 07:25 netstat -> sos_commands/networking/netstat_-neopa drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K Oct 19 16:16 opt dr-xr-xr-x 10 root root 4.0K Jun 23 2017 proc lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 Oct 20 07:25 ps -> sos_commands/process/ps_auxwww lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Oct 20 07:25 pstree -> sos_commands/process/pstree dr-xr-x--- 2 root root 4.0K Oct 17 12:09 root lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Oct 20 07:25 route -> sos_commands/networking/route_-n dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Sep 30 10:55 sbin drwx------ 54 root root 4.0K Oct 20 07:21 sos_commands drwx------ 2 root root 4.0K Oct 20 07:21 sos_logs drwx------ 2 root root 4.0K Oct 20 07:21 sos_reports dr-xr-xr-x 6 root root 4.0K Jun 23 2017 sys lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Oct 20 07:25 uname -> sos_commands/kernel/uname_-a lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Oct 20 07:25 uptime -> sos_commands/general/uptime drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4.0K Sep 25 2014 var -rw------- 1 root root 1.7K Oct 20 07:21 version.txt lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 62 Oct 20 07:25 vgdisplay -> sos_commands/lvm2/vgdisplay_-vv_--config_global_locking_type_0
To confirm exactly what sosreport captured, I’m gonna look at the uname output file captured by sosreport in the above step.
# more uname_-a Linux oracle.2daygeek.com 2.6.32-042stab127.2 #1 SMP Thu Jan 4 16:41:44 MSK 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
For Additional Options
Visit the sosreport Man page to see all the options available to sosreport.
# sosreport --help
Usage: sosreport [options]
Options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-l, --list-plugins list plugins and available plugin options
-n NOPLUGINS, --skip-plugins=NOPLUGINS
disable these plugins
-e ENABLEPLUGINS, --enable-plugins=ENABLEPLUGINS
enable these plugins
-o ONLYPLUGINS, --only-plugins=ONLYPLUGINS
enable these plugins only
-k PLUGOPTS, --plugin-option=PLUGOPTS
plugin options in plugname.option=value format (see
-l)
--log-size=LOG_SIZE set a limit on the size of collected logs
-a, --alloptions enable all options for loaded plugins
--all-logs collect all available logs regardless of size
--batch batch mode - do not prompt interactively
--build preserve the temporary directory and do not package
results
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
--verify perform data verification during collection
--quiet only print fatal errors
--debug enable interactive debugging using the python debugger
--ticket-number=CASE_ID
specify ticket number
--case-id=CASE_ID specify case identifier
-p PROFILES, --profile=PROFILES
enable plugins selected by the given profiles
--list-profiles
--name=CUSTOMER_NAME specify report name
--config-file=CONFIG_FILE
specify alternate configuration file
--tmp-dir=TMP_DIR specify alternate temporary directory
--no-report Disable HTML/XML reporting
-z COMPRESSION_TYPE, --compression-type=COMPRESSION_TYPE
compression technology to use [auto, gzip, bzip2, xz]
(default=auto)
Some examples:
enable cluster plugin only and collect dlm lockdumps:
# sosreport -o cluster -k cluster.lockdump
disable memory and samba plugins, turn off rpm -Va collection:
# sosreport -n memory,samba -k rpm.rpmva=off
