Collecting and submitting support files

You can use IBM® Flex System Manager management software to collect and submit support files for a managed resource.

Support files can contain detailed system information used to help diagnose a serviceable hardware problem, dump files collected from a managed resource, event logs, and more. By default, Service and Support Manager automatically collects additional data associated with a serviceable hardware problem, and stores it as a support file. However, you can also collect support file data manually, even when a serviceable hardware problem has not occurred.

To collect and submit support files for a managed resource, complete the following steps:

  1. To go to the Service and Support Manager page, click the Plug-ins tab on the Home page and click Service and Support Manager at the bottom of the plug-in list.
  2. From the Service and Support Manager page, click Manage support files under Common Tasks. The Manage Support Files page opens.
  3. To manually collect additional support files from a managed resource, click Collect Support Files.... The Collect Support Files panel opens.
  4. Use the Collect Support Files panel to select the managed system and support file types for which you want to collect. If you select a file type of Resource Dump and do not specify a resource selector, a non-disruptive system dump will be performed. The resulting file will be a SYSDUMP file, rather than RSCDUMP.
Note:
  1. You can also collect and submit support files with the collectsptfile and submitsptfile commands in the command-line interface. See collectsptfile and submitsptfile for more information.
  2. Service and Support Manager requires either smadmin or smmgr user authority in order to view and manage support files.
  3. Support files associated with a problem cannot be submitted unless the problem itself has been submitted to IBM support and is currently in a submitted state. Go to the Problems page to see the current status of the problem and ensure that the status is submitted before attempting to submit any associated support files.
Parent topic: Troubleshooting the IBM Flex System Manager management software and hardware