Collect device logs

Collect logs from a device

1. Open Network › Device logs and choose Collect logs. Collecting runs commands on a device, so it needs the Administrator EX tier.
2. Choose the Device: a switch, stack member or access point with a management address.
3. Choose What to collect: Recent log messages, Hardware and environment, Interfaces and optics, or the Support set (all of them, for a vendor case). The dialog lists the exact read-only show commands it will send.
4. Start it. The collection is listed as Collecting, then Collected, Partly collected or Nothing collected.

The same dialog opens from a vendor case, with the case’s device already chosen.

Read a collection

Choose a row. The drawer shows the device, when and why it was asked, how many reads came back, the size, how long it is kept, and a SHA-256 for the whole collection and for each read. Each read has Copy and Download; Download all saves a .zip. Expand opens a read in the terminal view, full window, with line numbers, search, wrap, follow and copy, while Expand logs into the terminal view is on in Features (it is by default).

Attach to case gives an open vendor case that names the device a copy, with the same SHA-256. The views All, Needs a look and Automatic narrow the list.

Collect automatically after an outage

The Collect logs after an outage card sits at the foot of the Device logs page. An Administrator EX turns it on or off there; the card says who last changed it and when. Everyone else sees whether it is on. It is off until you turn it on.

• For a problem Cenovel can still read through, such as a power supply, a port or a restart, it collects the switch’s recent log messages when the outage opens.
• For a switch that stopped answering Cenovel, it collects when the switch answers again, because its logs can’t be read before then.
• At most once an hour for each switch and 20 times an hour in all. Never for a single stack member or for what a wireless controller reports.

Automatic collections show Automatic: outage or Automatic: restart as who asked, and appear on the incident page.

How long logs are kept

Collections are kept for 90 days by default, then removed with what they held; a copy attached to a vendor case stays with the case. An Administrator EX changes Keep device logs for (7 to 3,650 days) in Settings › System › Deployment, under Records and uploads.

See also: Run a read-only script · Work an outage