User manual NOVELL SUPPORT ADVISOR 04-2010

[. . . ] See the Novell International Trade Services Web page (http://www. novell. com/info/exports/) for more information on exporting Novell software. Novell assumes no responsibility for your failure to obtain any necessary export approvals. No part of this publication may be reproduced, photocopied, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted without the express written consent of the publisher. 404 Wyman Street, Suite 500 Waltham, MA 02451 U. S. A. [. . . ] When the data is gathered for a health check, some load occurs over a Secure Shell connection to the queried device, but once the data is collected, the connection is terminated so network and device load is minimized. The gathered data is then consolidated into a dashboard view that shows critical patterns in red, and good patterns in green, identifying what segments in which systems need attention. This tool also builds an Analysis Archive Database, or tar ball archive, that preserves a history of health checks that have been run and the problems that have been addressed, allowing customers to see trends and changes over time. A dashboard using the same color-coding scheme, a simple red = critical and green = good makes the information readily accessible. Novell Support Advisor can be used reactively when a problem occurs, and also proactively to run "health checks" to prevent potential future issues. If a problem is discovered where further help is needed, a service request connection to the Novell Customer Center through the client interface can be opened via Novell Support. 1. 1 System Requirements 1. 1. 1 Novell Support Advisor can be installed and run from: SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 or later SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 or later OpenSUSE 10. 3 or later Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later Microsoft Windows Vista Microsoft Windows Server 2003 1. 1. 2 Client System Requirements Intel Pentium III GHz or faster processor Overview 7 novdocx (en) 16 April 2010 512 MB of RAM 5MB of disk space for each server you will be analyzing 1. 1. 3 Novell Support Advisor can run against and analyze these platforms: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 GroupWise 8 (Linux and Windows) ZENworks Configuration Management 10 (Linux and Windows) 1. 2 Known Issues Zenworks running on windows requires the Zenworks control center credentials, not the windows user name and password. 1. 3 Installation 1. 3. 1 Installing Novell Support Advisor Download the Novell Support Advisor software package from support. novell. com/advisor Extract the Support Advisor package to a folder of your choice Within your specified folder, all the Advisor files extract into an advisor_install folder Launch the Support Advisor installer and follow the prompts to install Support Advisor When prompted, confirm the installation path. By default, Support Advisor installs in the following locations (your location might vary): Linux:/home/<username>/Support Advisor Windows:C:\Program Files\Novell\Support Advisor After you have installed Support Advisor, continue with the following post-installation tasks. 8 Novell Support Advisor user Guide novdocx (en) 16 April 2010 1. 4 Running Support Advisor The first time you run Support Advisor, you will be prompted to create an encrypted database. You may choose to continue without using a secure database, however none of your server credentials will be saved. Figure 1-1 Novell Support Advisor 1. 4. 1 Encrypted Database Option Enter password and hit create encrypted database 1. 4. 2 Understanding Support Advisor User Interface The primary Support Advisor UI elements include the following: Home Analyze Archives Service Request which opens a service request form in a web browser Settings Overview 9 novdocx (en) 16 April 2010 1. 4. 3 Home View The Home View is essentially the Support Advisor title page. It provides links to all the Support Advisor functions. Figure 1-2 Novell Support Advisor Home View 10 Novell Support Advisor user Guide novdocx (en) 16 April 2010 1. 4. 4 Analyze View The Analyze view is where the majority of Support Advisor interactions occur. In this view, you will add and delete servers, create and delete groups, run analysis on your environments and create html reports. Figure 1-3 Analyze View 1. 4. 5 Archives View The Archives View contains previous analysis by connection, group or custom. The "Custom Archive" view allows you to access previously created archives and load them into your NSA client for analysis. 1. 4. 6 Settings View The Settings view displays the Support Advisor settings which you can customize to your needs. General Tab Enable custom archive Default: disabled Enabled allows you to point the archive location to a path of your choosing. You will then have the ability to access and load Support Config archives that have been gathered outside of Novell Support Advisor for analysis. Enable or disable debug log Overview 11 novdocx (en) 16 April 2010 Figure 1-4 Settings View Support config Tab Perl location: the location of the local Perl binaries that will be leveraged by NSA to execute Support Diagnostic Patterns (SDP's) for SUSE Linux Enterprise Servers Location Default: /usr/bin/perl. NOTE: Perl is not typically available on standard Windows installations. The Windows version of Novell Support Advisor ships with an open source version of Perl that is laid down in programfiles/novell/supportadivsor/perl . Remote config directory: Location on the target server that NSA copies over the configuration file used for executing supportconfig on the target server. Remote rpm directory: Location on the target server for supportconfig. 12 Novell Support Advisor user Guide novdocx (en) 16 April 2010 Figure 1-5 Support config Tab Update Tab Check for updates. When enabled, the client will contact the update server on client startup to scan for potential updates Default: Enabled Select Novell Update Server or a custom server that pulls Support Advisor patterns. You will be prompted to name your group. [. . . ] This allows for one login prompt, and not multiple password prompts for the various commands Novell Support Advisor runs. For example, if your user name is jdoe you might add: jdoe ALL =( ALL ) NOPASSWD: ALL NOTE: If Novell Support Advisor fails at completing all of its needed tasks, you may want to consider changing the default timeout for the sudo user (which forces a currently unhandled password prompt). The timeout is typically set at 5 minutes by default. However, it is not typical for Novell Support Advisor to connect for this length of time to any server. 3. 3. 2 SSH Key Authentication Linux: Communication to Linux servers occurs over SSH (default port 22) NOTE: This default port number can be manually modified to accommodate non-standard ports configured for these services Use the following instructions to connect to a server using SSH certificate keys: On the target server, as a privileged user, run the following command: ssh-keygen ­t rsa Add the newly created public key to the 'authorized_keys' file below the . ssh directory. [. . . ]