Tools for Troubleshooting

This chapter contains the following sections:

Tools Reference

Cisco UCS Director provides a number of tools that can help you diagnose and resolve common problems. The following table describes these tools and the type of problems that they are designed to resolve.

Tool

Use

See

Support information

Viewing product support information.

Support Information

System information

Viewing basic and advanced system information, including the license status, database tables version, resource usage, logs, and debugging processes for troubleshooting.

Viewing System Information

Service Request logs

Viewing log details for a service request.

Viewing Log Details for a Service Request

Service Request Inputs/Outputs tab

Troubleshooting problems related to service request workflow execution.

Viewing the Workflow Input and Output Status of a Service Request

Cisco UCS Director Shell

Troubleshooting problems related to various administrative tasks such as connectivity, configuration and status.

Cisco UCS Director Shell

Browser-based REST Client for testing Cisco UCS Director APIs

Developing and testing Cisco UCS Director REST APIs.

Testing Cisco UCS Director REST APIs

Javascript Lint

Checking the JavaScript source code from your scripts that are used in Cisco UCS Director.

JavaScript Lint

Launch Interpreter

Executing JavaScript functions and defining variables and functions, when using scripts written in CloupiaScript.

Understanding the Cloupia Script Interpreter

Test Connection action

You can test connectivity for managed network elements, virtual accounts, and physical accounts.

Testing Connectivity

Unique administrative account on target devices.

By creating a unique administrative account on target devices, you can access logging information to troubleshoot problems.

Administrative Account On Target Devices

Support Information

Cisco UCS Director support provides basic and advanced system information, including the license status, database tables, version, resource usage, logs, and debugging processes for troubleshooting.

The Support Information page lets you perform the following actions:

  • View system information (Basic)

  • View system information (Advanced)

  • Show logs

  • Download all logs

  • Start and stop debug logging

  • Start and stop API logging

Viewing System Information

Cisco UCS Director allows you to access system information from the user interface. You can access the following types of system information:

  • Basic system information

  • Advanced system information

Basic system information includes the following:

  • Software version

  • Uptime

  • Service status

  • System license status

  • System usage

  • Compute accounts status

  • Compute server status

  • Storage account status

  • System catalogs

  • Network device status and

  • Cloud status

The advanced system information includes the following:

  • Basic system information

  • Database tables summary

  • Product configuration

  • Top process information

  • Information on processors, memory, disks, log files, network, and login

  • System task status

  • Cloud inventory

  • Monitoring status

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Support Information.

Step 2

From the System Information drop-down list, choose the type of system information you want to view.

Step 3

Click Submit.

The System Information page opens in a new tab and displays information about the Cisco UCS Director appliance.

Showing Logs

Cisco UCS Director collates the following logs in the system:

  • Infra Manager

  • Web Context Cloud Manger

  • Tomcat Log

  • Authenticator Log

  • Mail Delivery Log

  • Patch Log

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Support Information.

Step 2

From the System Information drop-down list, choose Show Log.

Step 3

From the Show Log drop-down list, choose the log file that you want to view.

Step 4

Click Show Logs.

The log file opens in a new tab or browser window and displays any available information, warning, and error logs.

Downloading Logs

You can download all the log files as a zipped file.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Support Information.

Step 2

From the System Information drop-down list, choose Download All Logs.

Step 3

Click Download.

Starting the Debug Log

Debug logging enables you to record a maximum of 30 minutes debug logging to a log file.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Support Information.

Step 2

From the System Information drop-down list, choose Debug Logging.

Step 3

Click Start Debug Logging.

Step 4

Click Stop Debug Logging to stop the recording.

The recording will automatically stop once it reaches the 30 minute limit.

Step 5

Click Download Debug Logs from HH.MM.SS (time) to download the zipped log file.

Note

 
To view the log details and SQL information in debug mode for reports, log into the Cisco UCS Director using shelladmin or ucsdadmin credentials and do one of the following:

  • As a shelladmin user, choose Tail Inframgr Logs option and press Enter

  • As a ucsdadmin user, execute tail -f /opt/infra/inframgr/logfile.txt.

  • As a root user, execute tail -f /opt/infra/inframgr/logfile.txt.

Generating API Logs

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Support Information.

Step 2

From the System Information drop-down list, choose API Logging.

Step 3

Click Start API Logging.

Step 4

Perform any tests that you want to run.

Step 5

Click Stop API Logging to stop the recording.

Step 6

Click Download API Debug Logs from HH.MM.SS (time) to download the zipped file.

A compressed (zip) file is generated and downloaded on to your desktop. This zipped file contains a text file that lists all the REST APIs that invoked on the appliance, along with the timestamp.

Viewing Log Details for a Service Request

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Organizations > Service Requests.

Step 2

Choose a user group.

The default is All User Groups, which lists all service requests.

Step 3

On the Service Requests page, click Service Requests.

Step 4

Click the row with the service request for which you want to view the log details.

Step 5

Click View Details, and expand Log.

Using the Database Audit Log

Database audit logging lets you log information on remote users connecting to the Cisco UCS Director database server. The log file contains information on when remote users connect to and disconnect from the server, and logs the actions performed. By default, database audit logging is disabled. You can disable database audit logging if there are performance issues due to excessive audit log traffic.

For more information on configuring the database audit log, see the Cisco UCS Director Administration Guide.

Procedure

Step 1

Edit the /etc/my.cnf file using vi.

Step 2

Update the value of the audit_log parameter to ON or OFF to enable or disable the database audit log.

Step 3

Do one of the following for the changes to take effect:

  • Restart the Cisco UCS Director database using the databaseInfra.sh stop and databaseInfra.sh start commands.

The databaseInfra.sh file is located in the /opt/infra folder.

  • Restart the Cisco UCS Director appliance.

Step 4

After enabling audit logging, if the following error message appears, remove or rename the log file and restart the Cisco UCS Director database server: 

ERROR : Plugin 'audit_log' init function returned error

Viewing the Workflow Input and Output Status of a Service Request

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Organizations > Service Requests.

Step 2

On the Service Requests page, click Service Requests.

Step 3

Click the row with the service request for which you want to view the input and output status.

Step 4

Click View Details, and expand Input/Output .

Cisco UCS Director Shell

Use the information in the following table to solve problems using Cisco UCS Director Shell.

Problem Area

Solution

Connectivity with Cisco UCS Director

Troubleshooting Cisco UCS Director Connectivity

Troubleshooting Connectivity with Cisco UCS Director and PowerShell Agent

Services

Log into the Cisco UCS Director Shell and choose one of the following options from the Shell menu:

  • Display Service Status

  • Stop Services

  • Start Services

Databases

Log into the Cisco UCS Director Shell and choose one of the following options from the Shell menu:

  • Stop Database

  • Start Database

  • Backup Database

  • Restore Database

Time Synchronization

Log into the Cisco UCS Director Shell and choose Time Sync from the Shell menu.

Nodes

Log into the Cisco UCS Director and choose Collect logs from a Node from the Shell menu.

JavaScript Lint

There can be several scenarios in Cisco UCS Director where you use JavaScript for scripts. Use the JavaScript Lint tool available at http://www.javascriptlint.com/online_lint.php to help you check your source code for any common mistakes.

Understanding the Cloupia Script Interpreter

The Cloupia Script interpreter is a JavaScript interpreter populated with built-in libraries and APIs. You can use the Cloupia Script interpreter to execute functions and to define variables and functions.

The Cloupia Script interpreter offers the following functions:

  • PrintObj—Takes in an object and prints out all the properties and methods in the object. The print result provides the values for variables in the object and functions that are available to be executed with the object. When you call toString() on a JavaScript function, for example, myFunction.toString(), the method signature of that function is returned.

    This example shows how to display the properties and methods of the ReportContext object and how to return the source code of the setCloudName function. 
    session started
> importPackage(com.cloupia.model.cIM);

> var ctx = new ReportContext();

> printObj(ctx);
properties = 
cloudName:null
class:class com.cloupia.model.cIM.ReportContext
filterId:null
id:null
targetCuicId:null
type:0
ids:[Ljava.lang.String;@4de27bc5
methods = 
setIds
jdoReplaceField
jdoReplaceFields
toString
getCloudName
wait
getClass
jdoReplaceFlags
hashCode
jdoNewInstance
jdoReplaceStateManager
jdoIsDetached
notify
jdoGetVersion
jdoProvideField
jdoCopyFields
jdoGetObjectId
jdoGetPersistenceManager
jdoCopyKeyFieldsToObjectId
jdoGetTransactionalObjectId
getType
getFilterId
setType
jdoIsPersistent
equals
setCloudName
jdoNewObjectIdInstance
jdoIsDeleted
getTargetCuicId
setId
setFilterId
jdoProvideFields
jdoMakeDirty
jdoIsNew
requiresCloudName
getIds
notifyAll
jdoIsTransactional
getId
jdoReplaceDetachedState
jdoIsDirty
setTargetCuicId
jdoCopyKeyFieldsFromObjectId

> var func = ctx.setCloudName;

> func
void setCloudName(java.lang.String)

> func.toString();
function setCloudName() {/*
void setCloudName(java.lang.String)
*/}

  • Upload—Uploads a JavaScript file to load into the interpreter. You can save the code as a separate file and upload the file using the upload command.

Administrative Account On Target Devices

To aid in troubleshooting problems, we recommend that you create an administrative account on all target devices in your environment. This administrative account should be unique and must have the highest administrative privileges on the devices.

Creating this administative account has the following benefits:

  • Isolating the problem while troubleshooting problems in an environment where Cisco UCS Director is integrated with other products. With this account created, the support personnel, should it come to that, can access log files created by this administrator account to determine the root cause of the problem.

  • Continuity in situations of personnel change or change in login credentials. Typically, administrators who configure the system initially use their own login credentials to configure or log in to target devices. In the event that these login credentials are modified later on, or the administrators are no longer available in your company, accessing information on the target devices for troubleshooting could pose a problem. This situation can be avoided by creating this unique administrator account.

Testing Connectivity

You can test connectivity for managed network elements, virtual accounts, and physical accounts.

Testing Connectivity of Managed Network Elements

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 2

On the Physical Accounts page, click Managed Network Elements.

Step 3

Click the row with the pod for which you want to test connectivity.

Step 4

Click Test Connection.

Testing the Connection to a Virtual Account

You can test the connection at any time after you add a virtual account.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Virtual Accounts.

Step 2

On the Virtual Accounts page, click Virtual Accounts.

Step 3

Click the row with the account for which you want to test the connection.

Step 4

Click Test Connection.

Step 5

When the connection test has completed, click Close.

What to do next

If the connection fails, verify the configuration of the virtual account, including the cloud location. If those are correct, determine whether there is a network connectivity problem.

Testing the Connection to a Physical Account

You can test the connection at any time after you add an account to a pod.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 2

On the Physical Accounts page, click Multi-Domain Managers.

Step 3

On the Multi-Domain Managers screen, click the row of the account for which you want to test the connection.

Step 4

Click Test Connection.

Step 5

When the connection test has completed, click Close.

What to do next

If the connection fails, verify the configuration of the account, including the username and password. If the username and password are correct, determine whether there is a network connectivity problem.