Uncompressed Workstation One and Horizon logs for IDM review

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

Support logs are uploaded to the Broadcom internal log server and the customer file reads with tar.gz extensions, but the embedded compressed files are zip files with tar.gz extensions, so the commands tdlog, gunzip, tar xzf or X do not work from the primary compressed file. 

You will see the following: 

┌───[user•server]─[time (time zone)]─[server type]─[case_number]─[/path/to/directory/case_number.server type/getftp_characters_year-month-dayThh-mm-ss] ls -lh
rw-r-----  1 user group 1.2G Month Day Time log-horizon--bundle-#############.tar.gz 
┌───[user•server]─[time (time zone)]─[server type]─[case_number]─[/path/to/directory/case_number.server type/getftp_characters_year-month-dayThh-mm-ss] file log-horizon--bundle-#############.tar.gz
log-horizon--bundle-#############.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, max speed, from Unix, original size modulo 2^32 1243211270
└─$ gzip --list log-horizon--bundle-#############.tar.gz
         compressed        uncompressed  ratio uncompressed_name
         1243588327          1243211270  -0.0% log-horizon--bundle-#############.tar

Environment

The embedded logs are not tar.gz but actually zip files (important: the commands options are specific to gzip and tar, do not change the option syntax)

Unpack/decompress the primary file:

└─$ mkdir log-globalenvironment-#############.tar.gz_extracted
└─$ gzip -d log-globalenvironment-#############.tar.gz -c log-globalenvironment-#############.tar.gz_extracted
└─$ tar -xf log-globalenvironment-#############.tar -C log-globalenvironment-#############.tar.gz_extracted

 

After decompressing the primary file the other file(s) will report as zip archived data with tar,gz extensions

└─$ cd log-globalenvironment-#############.tar.gz_extracted
└─$ file VIDM-LOG-BUNDLE-FQDNYear-Month-Day--x.x.x.x.tar.gz
VIDM-LOG-BUNDLE-FQDNYear-Month-Day--x.x.x.x.tar.gz: Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract

Cause

The embedded files were scripted to be compresses with a Windows Server or in this case a Workstation One system and not Photon OS. Therefore the embedded files extension tar.gz is not using gzip but zip.

Resolution

The solution is to unpack/decompress the embedded files with unzip or X commands.

Login to the log server with your credentials. 

In the primary directory:  /path/to/directory/case_number.server type/getftp_characters_year-month-dayThh-mm-ss

Run the command:  file log-horizon--bundle-#############.tar.gz
Output: file log-horizon--bundle-#############.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, max speed, from Unix, original size modulo 2^32 1244222282

Syntax to uncompressed the file(s):  unzip -d directory_name filename
Run the command:  unzip -d log-horizon--bundle-#############.tar.gz_extracted log-horizon--bundle-#############.tar.gz
Run the command: tar -xf log-globalenvironment-#############.tar -C log-globalenvironment-#############.tar.gz_extracted
Change directory into the folder with extracted data: cd log-horizon--bundle-#############.tar.gz_extracted
Run the command: ls -lh


For each file with tar.gz extensions make a directory and unpack/decompress the file into that directory or run the command X (the X command automates the directory creation) :

Option 1:
Run the command: mkdir  VIDM-LOG-BUNDLE-FQDN
repeat for each file

Run the command:  unzip -d VIDM-LOG-BUNDLE-FQDN VIDM-LOG-BUNDLE-FQDNYear-Month-Day--hh.mm.ss.ns.tar.gz
repeat for each file

or 

Option 2:
Run the command: X  VIDM-LOG-BUNDLE-FQDNYear-Month-Day--hh.mm.ss.ns.tar.gz
repeat for each file
The X command will unpack/decompress the data and place it automatically into VIDM-LOG-BUNDLE-FQDNYear-Month-Day--hh.mm.ss.ns.tar.gz_extracted directory

Additional Information

IDM is still supported by VMware, the commands we have on the internal log server does not switch modes of unpacking/decompressing files. This is a two step process one with gunzip and tar extraction of the primary compressed file then unzip or X command for the embedded compressed files usually related to Workstation One and Horizon data.