Debugging boot problems for Virtual PAM Appliances

Products

• CA Privileged Access Manager (PAM)

Issue/Introduction

Sometimes a virtual PAM appliance in ESX will not boot and there is no way to get the messages that should be thrown to the console

Therefore troubleshooting can't proceed to try to find a remediation

This article describes a procedure for at least getting the messages which at boot time should appear in the console and which may provide guidance on resolving the problem

Environment

CA PAM all versions

Resolution

• Same as with Hardware appliances, in CA PAM virtual appliances it is possible to attach a serial cable to the virtual appliance

  To do that

  • Stop the virtual appliance
  • Go to VM Hardware and click on Edit

  

  • Then go to Serial Port and Select "use output file", and "connected" . Then proceed to choose the file under "Save output file as..."

• • Select the DataStore to write the file to and a filename

Now boot the PAM instance: all output that should be sent to the console will be recorded in the file you have specified