Depending on what product you use, you will work with different technical support organizations:

 

•To contact support for users of LinMin Bare Metal Provisioning and for Cisco TAC engineers, go to http://support.linmin.com. It will be most helpful if you review this page prior to doing so, so as to understand what information and files will be required to submit an effective request for support

 

•To contact support for users of Cisco Server Provisioner, review the contents of this page, then provide the required information as described at the bottom of this page to TAC@cisco.com.

 

 

 

Processes to identify, describe and resolve issues with Provisioner

 

 

Ten minutes invested in reading this page will save you many email exchanges, saving you hours, and may actually help you resolve the issue without having to contact support.

 

Our goal is to minimize the amount of time it takes to understand your questions, reproduce your incident and provide you an answer, fix or workaround. Too often, incomplete information from customers requires that we ask for additional information or clarifications, a process further delayed by time zones.

 

We encourage you to invest 10 to 15 minutes of your time to collect the required information detailed below and avoid an email dialog requesting the items you did not provide initially. Only when all the required information has been received can a ticket be opened and your issue investigated.

 

Before contacting Technical Support, please consult this User's Guide "Troubleshooting" section and see if you can resolve the situation on your own. Alternatively, use the "Search" feature in the User's Guide. These Provisioner troubleshooting resources should always be your first recourse, as we continuously enhance them based on customer experiences. If you are unable to resolve the situation this way, Technical Support is here to help!

 

Our troubleshooting methodology requires a solid understanding of your environment and the issue. The more relevant information you provide, the better we can respond in a timely manner.

In addition to the applicable details below, it is important to include your personal observations, past related experiences, conjectures, and even guesses as to the probable, potential, or possible cause(s). These are important and valuable but no substitute for details that clearly define the environment, configuration, and messaging of the issue.

 

When contacting Technical Support, you must provide the following information and attachments, using a meaningful email subject line (e.g., "Rockwell: RHEL provisioning issue - 'stage 2' error message"):

 

 

If you are experiencing issues with importing or configuring an OVF, take screen shots, note the Quick Start Guide's step number where you had issues, generate a help file, then provide the information requested to:

•For LinMin Bare Metal Provisioning users:http://support.linmin.com

•For Cisco Server Provisioner users: TAC@cisco.com

 

 

For Provisioner usage support, before contacting Technical Support, please collect:

 

1. Description of your Provisioner PXE Server environment:

1.1 Hardware platform (server manufacturer, model, architecture)

1.2 Physical or Virtual? If Virtual, what is your host hypervisor (ESX/ESXi/etc.) and version number?

1.3 What release of Provisioner are you using (from Help/About)?

1.4 What OS are you running Provisioner on: RHEL or CentOS? Release number?

1.5 What is your networking configuration (IP information for GUI/API VLAN and for the PXE VLAN)?

1.6 If using UCS Manager, what is your UCS Profile for the Provisioner Server? Attach screenshots of "Equipment" tab showing NIC1 and NIC2 as shown in the UCS Configuration section of this User's Guide.

 

2. Description of the Provisioner action/function were you performing

2.1 MAC-Specific Template name and function (add/edit/delete)

2.2 MAC-Specific Role name and function (add/edit/delete) or action (Next Boot, Ignore, Live Ubuntu)

2.3 Imaging Profile name, function (add/edit/delete) and action (backup/restore/reset)

2.4 MAC-Independent (if using MAC-Independent, please provide the specific PXE Client Menu option used)

2.5 Using the GUI or the API? If you are using the API and experience difficulties, perform the same function using the Provisioner GUI before contacting support.

2.6 Using the Cisco Process Orchestrator or not? If you are using an orchestrator and experience difficulties, perform the same function using the Provisioner GUI before contacting support.

2.7 Other

 

3. Description of the Client environment (when applicable)

 

Always deploy Live Ubuntu to the Client and capture the hardware information before generating a .help file, as the client hardware Profile gets stored on the Provisioner PXE Server  and gets captured in the .help file.

 

Always maximize command line windows before taking screen shots (and scroll up and take screen shots if needed)

 

If troubleshooting a Windows client, provide the Windows client hardware and networking information.

 

3.1 Physical Client or Virtual Machine? If physical Client, describe it

3.2 Did Client have a new/empty disk or was there a previously installed OS? What OS?

3.3 Number of active NICs (only one NIC is supported during provisioning/imaging)

3.4 MAC address of the Client you were experiencing issues with (this is critically important) whether using MAC-Specific or MAC-Independent provisioning

3.6 If the Client is a UCS Blade or Server, provide screenshots of:

3.6.1 The Client's UCS Profile? Attach screenshots of "Equipment" tab showing NIC1 and NIC2 as shown in the UCS Configuration section of this User's Guide.

3.6.2 The Client's UCS boot policy

3.6.3 The Client's UCS LAN policy

3.6.4 The Client's UCS SAN policy (if using SAN instead of local disks)

3.6.5 The Client's UCS model number (B-Series or C-Series)

3.6.6 The Client's HBA model number

 

4 For all provisioning issues, information regarding the source ISO is required

Note: except for provisioning Windows Server 2003, only DVD ISOs are supported

If, after successfully installing the OS/Hypervisor manually (from DVD) and you have thus validated the ISO, please provide the following information:

4.1 Name of the ISO file

4.2 If you renamed the ISO file, name of the new ISO file used and of the original ISO file

4.3 Exact URL location where source ISO file was obtained from (full URL, not generic web site URL requiring guessing at how/where to drill down to locate the ISO)

4.4 ISO byte count

4.5 ISO MD5 or SHA1 string

 

5 Summary/overview of the issue

 

6 Complete step-by-step instructions on how to reproduce the issue

 

7 User's Guide reference(s) you used prior to contacting Support (did the searchable User's Guide not contain the information you required to solve the issue?)

 

8 Attachments

8.1 Screen shot(s) for GUI and client-side issues (always maximize the command line window before taking screen shots, take multiple screen shots as needed)

8.1.1 Full screen shot(s) showing the entire browser page or the entire client screen (multiple screen shots are OK if you cannot capture entire screens at once)

8.1.2 Issues often require multiple screen shots, e.g.:

8.1.2.1 dashboard list before action

8.1.2.2 add/edit form completed before commit

8.1.2.3 dashboard list after action

8.2 Support .help file (generated after deploying Live Ubuntu to the client system and selecting Hardware Inventory)

 

 

The ".help" file: The only way to assist you in troubleshooting your system is for you to generate a ".help" file that contains a snapshot of your system settings, a record of what you have provisioned/imaged, etc.

 

The .help file must be generated immediately after you experience the issue. If you've modified the system after experiencing the issue, reproduce the issue and immediately afterwards, generate a new .help file.

 

Always deploy Live Ubuntu to the Client and capture the hardware information before generating a .help file, as the client hardware Profile gets stored on the Provisioner PXE Server  and gets captured in the .help file.

 

We cannot start investigating your issue until we receive a .help file that directly reflects the issue being reported.

 

cd /usr/local/linmin

./linmin-bmp-support-help.sh

 

Then provide the resulting file “lbmp-supporthelp_{timestamp}*.help” file with all the required items listed above to:

•For LinMin Bare Metal Provisioning users:http://support.linmin.com

•For Cisco Server Provisioner users: TAC@cisco.com

 

 

Do not alter the .help file. Send it as is: do not zip or otherwise compress the .help file, nor change its extension. Such help files received in other formats fail automated pre-processing and will delay providing you with a response. Support .help files are already in "bz2" compressed format with a .help file extension. This format and file extension pass all known email security/spam filters. Other file formats and extensions, e.g. .zip, can be blocked or delayed.

 

Technical Support: We provide Technical Support and product updates to customers with valid Support Agreements only.

 

For customers eligible for Technical Support, we will replicate the customer’s description of the problem with the simple configuration of “Provisioner PXE Server-Switch-Client”, meaning a Provisioner PXE Server connected to a non-programmable switch (such as an 8-port Linksys/Cisco or Belkin switch) connected to a supported client system, all locally connected by CAT-5 or CAT-6 cables.

 

Before reporting a potential issue to Cisco, please replicate this “Provisioner PXE Server-Switch-Client” configuration and confirm that you obtain the same results as you did in your deployed network configuration.

 

If the Provisioner PXE Server performs as expected in the “Provisioner PXE Server-Switch-Client” network configuration but not in your deployed network configuration, diagnose the differences (and refer to our troubleshooting tips in this chapter).  For assistance beyond the basic Server-Switch-Client configuration, please see our web site for current Consulting Services fees (by the hour or by the day).

 

We look forward to assisting you!