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Sending a Support Bundle via VAST Web UI

Sara Levy
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If your support agent asks you to create a support bundle for troubleshooting purposes, follow this procedure. The bundle creation process extracts information from your VAST Cluster into a compressed file that you can send to us. There is also an option to download support bundle files to your own machine.

You may choose to obfuscate sensitive data.

By default, data is collected from all CNodes and DNodes. Optionally you can restrict it to specific nodes.

Aggregated bundles contain all data from all nodes included and are saved on the management CNode.

Support bundle files are not automatically overwritten when a new bundle file is created.

Creating a Support Bundle

  1. From the left navigation menu, select Support and then Bundles. 

  2. Click + Create Support Bundle.

  3. In the Create Support Bundle dialog, complete these fields:

    Field

    Description

    Preset

    Select a category (or categories) that best suits the issue for which you are creating the support bundle.

    Each category includes a predefined set of data objects in the support bundle. Verify with your support engineer which category is suitable for your needs.

    This field is optional. If no categories are selected, only management logs are collected.

    Prefix (required)

    Enter an identifying label to include in the bundle file name.

    The prefix can contain up to 64 characters. Special characters are not allowed.

    The name of the bundle will be bundle-<preset>-<cluster name>-<prefix>-<timestamp>.tar, where <prefix> is the prefix specified here.

    For example, if the prefix is MyUrgentIssue, a bundle using the mini preset created at exactly 7:45 am UTC on September 3rd, 2020 on a cluster called cluster1 would be named bundle-mini-cluster1-MyUrgentIssue-2020-09-03-074500.tar.

    Start time

    Specify a start time in UTC+0 for the period from which to collect information.

    End time

    Specify an end time in UTC+0 for the period to collect information.

    It's usually advisable to consult with the support engineer on the time frame so that you can make it as short as possible and minimize the size of the bundle.

    Obfuscated

    Converts all bundled objects to text and obfuscates them. Any data that cannot be converted to text is not included in the bundle. The following types of information are replaced with a non-reversible hash: file and directory names, IP addresses, host names, user names, passwords, MAC addresses.

    Aggregated

    Saves an aggregated bundle file on the management CNode.

    By default, a separate bundle file is created on each CNode and DNode that is included in the bundle. This file includes all nodes by default, or you can restrict it to specific nodes in the Advanced pane (see step 4).

  4. Optionally, select Advanced to further specify which data to collect, and also configure upload settings:

    CNodes only

    Enable this setting to collect data from CNodes only.

    DNodes only

    Enable this setting to collect data from DNodes only.

    CNode

    Select specific CNodes to collect data from those CNodes and not from the other CNodes. This selection is ignored if DNodes only is selected.

    DNode

    Select specific DNodes to collect data from those DNodes and not from the other DNodes. This selection is ignored if CNodes only is selected.

    VIPPool

    Select VIP pools to collect data only from CNodes that are included in these VIP pools.

    Hubble args

    Enter any arguments to pass to Hubble, per instructions from the support engineer.

    Astron args

    Enter any arguments to pass to Astron, per instructions from the support engineer.

    Max size

    Enter a maximum data limit to apply to the collection of binary trace files, in GB. You can use this option to limit the overall size of the support bundle.

    Text

    Converts all bundled objects to a text format. Any data that cannot be converted to text is not included in the bundle.

    This setting is enabled automatically if Obfuscated is selected.

    Upload

    Immediately uploads the support bundle to the specified S3 bucket using the specified pair of Access Key and Secret Key.

    via VMS

    Uploads a non-aggregated support bundle via VMS. Otherwise, the upload is done from each node.

    This option can be enabled only after Upload is enabled.

    Enabling this option requires a proxy to be set up.

    S3 bucket

    Specifies the S3 bucket name of the destination S3 bucket. This field is available only when Upload is enabled.

    Access Key

    Specifies the access key of a valid key pair to access the destination S3 bucket. This field is available only when Upload is enabled.

    Secret Key

    Specifies the secret key of a valid key pair to access the destination S3 bucket. This field is available only when Upload is enabled.

  5. Click Create or Create & Upload and then click Yes to confirm.

    The bundle file is then created. The status of the bundle creation process is displayed on the Bundles page.

    If you clicked Create & Upload, the upload takes place immediately upon bundle creation.

Uploading a Support Bundle

When bundle creation is completed, the bundle can be uploaded to VAST Data Support.

You can upload the support bundle to VAST Data Support immediately upon bundle creation or at a later time.

To have a support bundle uploaded immediately upon its creation, complete the upload settings in the Advanced pane in the Create Support Bundle dialog.

To upload a created support bundle at a later time:

  1. From the left navigation menu, select Support and then Bundles. 

  2. In the Actions column, click the Actions_Button.png button for the bundle and select Upload.

    The Upload bundle to S3 dialog appears.

  3. Click Upload.

    The upload begins.

  4. While the upload is in process, you'll see the Activities icon at the top of the page. Once upload is complete, it will disappear. The upload task is logged in the Activities page, which you can open from the menu.

Downloading a Support Bundle to Your Local Machine

You can download a support bundle to your local machine.

  1. From the left navigation menu, select Support and then Bundles. 

  2. In the Actions column, click the Actions_Button.png button and select Download.

    The bundle file is downloaded to your machine.

Deleting a Support Bundle

When you delete a support bundle, the corresponding bundle files are deleted from the nodes, and the bundle entry is removed from the displayed list.

Caution

Do not try to delete a support bundle before it is completely created. This will cause unexpected behavior.

  1. From the left navigation menu, select Support and then Bundles. 

  2. In the Actions column, click the Actions_Button.png button and select Remove.

  3. Click Yes to confirm.

    The bundle is deleted.

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