Oracle Explorer Data Collector is a diagnostic data collection tool. It collects data on hardware, storage, network, Operating System, system configuration, and most importantly log files and error messages. Collecting and transferring this data to Oracle is one of the fundamental prerequisites for troubleshooting any number of product issues. By default this program is not being installed on server.Oracle recommends installing Explorer on every Solaris system and running it at least once every 3 months. Optimal running of Explorer should be every month. Whenever possible, make Explorer part of every standard build and always run before and after any changes to the system.
Collecting and archiving Explorer snapshots, at Oracle or at the customer site, makes it easy to:
- Document the initial setup of a system after installation.
- Document any changes on a system's configuration by comparing the deltas of two Explorer snapshots.
- Analyze potential problems by looking for changes made at the affected system.
- Recover well known working system configuration files (e.g. /etc/path_to_inst, /etc/system, VxVM configuration) if they are accidentally removed or destroyed.
- Automatically identify customer systems impacted by known issues, resulting in a quicker resolution of product quality issues
- Speed up analysis of arising new product quality issues. Explorer data, amongst other data sources, are analyzed to help in root cause analysis.
- Calculate a systems operational risk (Operational Risk Index, ORI) - the potential chance of a system to go out of service due to hardware, software and administrative issues.
Installing Oracle Explorer Data CollectorFor getting Explorer installer we must have MOS (My Oracle Support) accounts, after we login on MOS https://support.oracle.com/ we can download the installer.
The supported way to install Oracle Explorer Data Collector is via the Oracle Services Tools Bundle (STB) because Oracle Explorer relies on the presence of the other software packages on the system.With Oracle STB, you can realize the following key benefits:
- Expedites problem diagnosis and resolution.
- Proactive prevention.
- Easy installation of all the latest tools.
Oracle Services Tools Bundle includes:
- Oracle Explorer Data Collector
- Oracle Remote Diagnostic Agent (RDA)
- Oracle Autonomous Crashdump Tool (ACT)
- Oracle Serial Number in EEPROM (SNEEP)
STEP for downloading STB:
- Type “stb installer” or doc ID “1153444.1” on search knowledge base tab.
STEP for installing STB:
- Coping installer file to server
- Log in as root.
- Unzip installer: #unzip p14179436_70_SOLARIS64.zip
- Make sure the install script is executable: #chmod +x install_stb.sh
- Run the following command: #./install_stb.sh -verbose
- You will be asked to choose between I(install), X(extract), or E(exit). Choose the I(install) option.
STEP for running Explorer:
For the first time running Explorer we must accept the license and update or create the defaults file.
#/opt/SUNWexplo/bin/explorer –g
Answer questions and information are needed, for the default application settings select default or press “enter”, then for region choose "APAC" and country ID for Indonesia is "ID".
Run command: #/opt/SUNWexplo/bin/explorer –v –k
v = verbose; k = do not overwrite existing explorer files
After finished we can see an output file on directory /opt/SUNWexplo/output.
The Oracle Explorer Data Collector is comprised of UNIX shell scripts and a few binary executables to capture data. This data is human-readable (i.e. collected in ASCII format), and is compressed and packed into a single file named explorer..-YYYY.MM.DD.HH.MM.tar.gz for easy transfer to Oracle, or to internal archiving systems.
For looking an output of Explorer file:
- Run command:
- #cd /opt/SUNWexplo/output
- #ls -la
Explorer file can be taken to our desktop/laptop via FTP or SCP via secure shell.
Tips & Tricks (reading explorer file).TIPS & TRICKS
- For checking disk status,
- go to: disks; then
- open file “iostat –E”, “df –kl”, and “luxadm -e port”.
- disks --> svm; then open file “metastat”.
- For checking via Fault Management Architecture (FMA),
- go to:fma; then
- open file “fmadm faulty ”.
- For reading last messages on server,
- go to:messages; then
- open file “messages”.
- For finding many useful command for checking server,
- go to:sysconfig; then
- find the command, ex: prtconf, prtdiag, chassis serial, uptime, ifconfig, etc.
- Special directory for T xxxx series server, contain SC prompt output,
*opening file via windows OS can use notepad or wordpad.
Collecting ILOM snapshot via web and consoleSun’s Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) provides advanced service processor hardware and software that you can use to manage and monitor your Sun servers. ILOM’s dedicated hardware and software is preinstalled on a variety of Sun x64-based Sun Fire servers, Sun Blade Modular Systems, and Sun Blade server modules, as well as on SPARC-based servers. ILOM is a vital management tool in the data center and can be used to integrate with other data center management tools already installed on your systems. Sun is currently transitioning many systems to support ILOM so that customers will have a single, consistent, and standards-based service processor (SP) across Sun’s product lines. For customers, this means you will have:
- Single, consistent system management interfaces for operators
- Rich protocol and standards support •Broadening third-party management support
- System management functions integrated into Sun servers at no extra cost To access ILOM for gathering information data we can use many ways, on this document We will use CLI and web service interface.
From picture above we can see two port for physical access to ILOM, SER MGT used for serial console connection and NET MGT used for TCP/IP connection.
For using SER MGT (CLI Console) as default we must use this parameter:
- Protocol : serial
- Baud Rate : 9600
- Data Bit : 8
- Parity : none
- Stop Bit : 1
For using NET MGT (web, ssh, etc) we just connect TCP/IP cables and set our laptop/desktop IP using same network with ILOM’s IP network parameters.
If we want to see the ILOM IP configurations on server we must connect via SER MGT, login ILOM CLI’s (defaults username and password=root:changeme) then run this command:
Tips & tricks (configuring static IP address on ILOM)
Configuring a Static IP Address on ILOM:
- Set the working directory:
- Specify a static Ethernet configuration:
- -> set pendingipdiscovery=static
- -> set pendingipaddress=xxx.xxx.xx.xx
- -> set pendingipnetmask=yyy.yyy.yyy.y
- -> set pendingipgateway=zzz.zzz.zz.zzz
- -> set commitpending=true
Collecting Snapshot & LOG from ILOM
First before begin collecting log, check the ILOM SP firmware version via CLI (using SER MGT), If the firmware version is less than 3 please collect and send us the following logs:
- -> version
- SP firmware 2.0.0.1
- SP firmware build number: #####
- SP firmware date: Fri Nov 28 14:03:21 EDT 2008
- SP filesystem version: 0.1.22
- ->show / -l all
- ->show -o table -level all /
- ->show /SP/logs/event/list
Login to SC prompt from ILOM:
- Login to ILOM
- Create a user named admin, then set the admin account role to Administrator and the CLI mode to alom
- -> create /SP/users/admin role=Administrator cli_mode=alom
- Creating user...
- Enter new password: ********
- Enter new password again: ********
- Created /SP/users/admin
- Log out of the root account after you have finished creating the admin account: -> exit
- Then Re-login with new user admin, after that we will see sc> prompt on console.
Useful command for collecting data from sc> :
- sc>showfaults -v
- sc>showcomponent
- sc>showenvironment
- sc>showlogs -v
- sc>showfru
- sc>showsc -v
- sc>showhost
- sc>showplatform -v
- sc>consolehistory -v
If ILOM SP firmware version is 3 or newer then connect ILOM via web HTTPS:
- Log in to the Oracle ILOM SP web interface.
- Click Maintenance --> Snapshot.The Service Snapshot Utility page appears.
- Select the data set: Normal, FRUID, Full, or Custom.
- Normal – Specifies that Oracle ILOM, operating system, and hardware information is to be collected.
- FRUID – Available as of Oracle ILOM 3.0.3, specifies that information about FRUs currently configured on your server in addition to the data collected by the Normal set option is to be collected.
- Full – Specifies that all data is to be collected. Selecting Full might reset the system.
- Custom – Allows you to choose one or more of the following data sets:
- Oracle ILOM data
- Hardware data
- Basic OS data
- Diagnostic data
- FRUID data
- If you want to collect only log files from the data set, click the Enabled check box.
- If you want to encrypt the output file, click the Enabled check box.
- Select one of the following methods to transfer the output file:
- Click Run.A Save As dialog box appears.
- In the dialog box, specify the directory to which to save the file and the filename.
- Click OK.The file is saved to the specified directory.
Thanks to : Brama Subhifajar for the Document.
Download STB on My Oracle Support
From picture above we can see two port for physical access to ILOM, SER MGT used for serial console connection and NET MGT used for TCP/IP connection.
