What diagnostic information should a customer supply when logging a support issue for eTrust Directory?

Products

• CA Directory
• CA Security Command Center
• CA Data Protection (DataMinder)
• CA User Activity Reporting

Issue/Introduction

Prior to a customer logging an issue with CA Directory support, there are a few important things that a customer can do in order to ensure that CA Support have all the information they need in order to analyze and diagnose the issue. In this techdoc we explain all the steps that the customer need to perform in order to collect all the logs and configuration files required to analyze an issue.

Environment

CA Directory 14.1.x

Cause

N/A

Resolution

The recommended process for capturing the required diagnostic information is to run the utility called "DXinfo" after the issue has been reproduced when a high trace level is set.

In cases where the issue concerns multi-write, remote search operations or other "distribution" type issues, please perform this process for ALL directory servers involved. That way CA support can develop a complete picture of what is occurring within the Directory backbone.

For all the details please refer to the procedure specified below:

1. Shutdown ALL DSA's (on all Directory servers)
   
   
2. Clear out the Directory logs (back them up to a safe location)
   
   
• on Windows it's - '%DXHOME%\logs'.
  
  
• on Unix/Linux it's - '$DXHOME/logs'.
  
  
3. Manually update the logging configuration files to set the trace as "set trace=all;", instead of what it is now (keep a record of what it is, because they will need to change it back after the testing).
   
   
   • on Windows it's - '%DXHOME%\config\logging/*.dxc'.
     
     
   • on Unix/Linux it's - '$DXHOME/config/logging/*.dxc'.
     
     Hint - The actual logging config files to be changed are the ones that are sourced within the DSA's initialization files in:
     
     
   • on Windows it's - '%DXHOME%\config\servers/*.dxi'.
     
     
   • on Unix/Linux it's - '$DXHOME/config/servers/*.dxi'.
     
     
4. Start ALL DSA's on all directory servers
   
   
5. Reproduce the issue being experienced, a couple of times so that an adequate amount of trace can be captured. Please note down for CA support the key search filters used or other unique characteristics of the operations being performed so that they can be quickly isolated in the possibly very large trace logs.
   
   
6. Stop ALL DSA's on ALL directory servers
   
   
7. From ALL CA Directory servers, run the 'DXinfo' utility. Please Note - For UNIX you need to run the command as user "dsa". This will create a series of files in the current working directory. These files will need to be either FTP'd or emailed to support for analysis. Output of the dxinfo command may look like the following:
   
   Collecting DXinfo Version
   Collecting Operating System Version
   Collecting Windows User Environment Variables
   Collecting DXserver Home
   Collecting DXserver II_SYSTEM
   Collecting DXserver Version
   Collecting Ingres Version Information
   Collecting Registry Data
   Collecting DXserver and Ingres Logs
   Collecting DXserver Config
   The following files have been created
   C:\Program Files\CA\eTrust Directory\dxserver\tmp/etrdir_dxinfo.log
   C:\Program Files\CA\eTrust Directory\dxserver\tmp/etrdir_logs.cab
   C:\Program Files\CA\eTrust Directory\dxserver\tmp/etrdir_config.cab
   
   
8. If analysing a DXmanager (Directory Management component) issue, then please collect the following files for analysis:
   Apache Tomcat log files:
   
   
   • on Windows it's - '%DXHOME%\..\dxwebserver\logs\*'
     
     
   • on Unix/Linux it's - ''$DXHOME/../dxwebserver/logs/'.
     
     
   Java Console output:
   
   Please refer to the techdoc titled: DXMANAGER: How can I automate Java console tracing? for details on how to automate the Java Console tracing.

Configuration export or other information required to verify the problem:

1. "Configuration" pull down menu
   
   
2. Select "Export Version"
   
   
3. Highlight the version of the configuration that you are having issues with. Normally this should be the current config version that has the comment "Deployed".
   
   
4. Click the "Export" button. Save the XML file to a known location.

Please attach the DXinfo and DXmanager (if applicable) files to your CA support issue for analysis.

In this example, the command was run from the folder: "C:\Program Files\CA\eTrust Directory\dxserver\tmp". To clarify what files need to be sent, just:

1. Create a temporary directory
   
   
2. CD to that directory
   
   
3. Run the command 'DXinfo'
   
   
4. The resulting files in that temporary directory then need to be emailed to CA Support for analysis. The files will contain both logs, configs and environment information. No CA Directory data (datastore contents) is contained in any of the output files.
   
   
1. Manually reset ALL CA Directory trace levels back to what they were before, within ALL logging config files on ALL directory servers.
   
   
2. Restart all DSA's