Gathering information for problem analysis

You can use a utility to archive and ship log files, configuration data, and other troubleshooting information to IBM® Software Support for problem analysis and resolution.

To gather log files and other troubleshooting information, you run the esservice command. There is no support for collecting this type of information in the administration console.

Running the service utility

If you want to gather information from all system servers, you must run the esservice command on each server.

  1. Log in as the administrator. In a multiple server configuration, log in on the server for which you want to gather information.
  2. Enter the following command:
    AIX® or Linux®
    $ES_INSTALL_ROOT/bin/esservice.sh -options
    Windows
    %ES_INSTALL_ROOT%\bin\esservice.bat -options
    Options:
    -help
    Provides help information for the command.
    -file zip_FileName
    Specifies a name for the archive file that contains the data to be shipped to IBM Software Support. If you do not specify this option, the utility uses the following convention to name the ZIP file:
    service_component_yyyyMMdd_HHmmssz.zip
    where:
    component
    In a multiple server configuration, identifies the server where the service utility is run, such as master, crawler, index, or search.
    yyyyMMdd
    Is the current year, month, and day when the service utility is run.
    HHmmss
    Is the current hour, minute, and second when the service utility is run.
    z
    Is the time zone offset from GMT when the service utility is run. For example, Pacific Standard Time is GMT -0800.
    If you specify the name of an existing file, then the service utility overwrites the existing file with the new service information and prints a warning message about the overwritten file.
    Tip: If you specify a file name instead of using the default naming convention, be sure to include a component identifier in the file name. In a multiple server configuration, the component identifier helps IBM Software Support identify the archive file that contains information for a particular server. For example, you might specify index.zip, crawler.zip, search1.zip, or search2.zip.
    -maxzip N
    Causes the output archive file to be split when the input data size is greater than the specified number (N) of GB. The default value is 20 GB and the minimum value is 5 GB. When the archive file is split, the utility inserts a number before the file extension to increment the file name. For example
    service_crawler_20070123_101312-0800.zip
service_crawler_20070123_101312-0800_2.zip
service_crawler_20070123_101312-0800_3.zip
    -cid collection_ID_1,collection_ID_2,collection_ID_3
    Specifies a comma-separated list of collection IDs for the collections that have dropped document logs that you want to include in the archive file.
    Tip: To determine the collection ID for a collection, you can use the administration console or use the esadmin report collections command.
    -nocore
    Affects only files in the ES_NODE_ROOT/logs directory. Specifies that no C++ core files are to be included in the archive file.
    -noheapdump
    Affects only files in the ES_NODE_ROOT/logs directory. Specifies that no Java™ core files are to be included in the archive file.
    -pattern pattern
    Affects only files in the ES_NODE_ROOT/logs directory. Specifies pattern matching criteria for the files to be included in the archive file. For example:
    -pattern command.*.log
    Matches all files that start with command and end with .log.
    pattern -[a-z]*_[0-9].log
    Matches all files that contain lowercase alphabetic characters followed by an underscore character and a sequence of numbers that end with .log.
    If the pattern contains special characters such as an asterisk (*), question mark (?), and so on, you must enclose the pattern in double quotation marks.
    -pwd
    Causes all encrypted passwords to be left as specified in the ES_INSTALL_ROOT/nodeinfo/es.cfg file. Specify this option if IBM Software Support needs the passwords to troubleshoot a problem.

    If you do not specify this option, the utility creates a tmp/es.cfg file to include in the archive. If a password field in the tmp/es.cfg file specifies a password, the password is replaced with a string of the letter x (for example, xxxxx). If the password field is blank, then the field remains blank in the tmp/es.cfg file.

Usage guidelines

  • You can run the service utility when the Watson Explorer Content Analytics system is running or stopped. You can also run the service utility on a system that is not fully installed.
  • The utility collects operating system information such as the number of processors, the amount of memory, and free disk space into a file named os_system.out, and includes this file in the archive.
  • The service utility does not include enterprise search application data (ES_INSTALL_ROOT/installedApps) or collection data in the archive. For example, the archive does not include crawler metadata, user credential data, parser data, index files, dictionaries, text analysis engines, and so on.