How to collect support data on Dell EMC Brocade VDX switches

This video demonstrates the procedure of how to collect support data on Dell EMC Brocade VDX switches.

Welcome to Dell Technologies Connectrix Brocade VDX family - How to Series. How to collect support data on the Brocade VDX family of switches. Reference Dell Knowledge Article # 485781.

This video was created to provide instructions on how to gather support data by logging into VDX switch CLI. The copy support command provides a mechanism for capturing critical system data and uploading the data to an external host or saving the data to an attached USB device.

These are the ways to gather support data from CLI. One, uploading supportSave data to an external host. Two, saving supportSave data to an attached USB device.

You will learn to gather support data from VDX switches which will be needed by Support team's investigation. You will log into the switch with an account having admin permissions.

Then run the copy support interactive command and provide the FTP server details such as the IP address of the host the user credentials in the directory where the support data needs to be saved. Also check out the non-interactive version of this command.

Support data will be requested by the Connectrix Support Team for investigation of an issue for which a service request or collaboration is raised. It is also helpful to gather the support data before making any changes to the switch configuration. For gathering support data, you will have to access the switch with the user having admin permissions.

You will require an internal FTP or SCP server on the same IP network as the switches or there must be a root in the IP network that can connect to the FTP or SCP server. Alternatively, using an FTP application such as FileZilla or 3CDeamon application will be required in case FTP server is not available.

Log into the switch CLI using a terminal emulator for example, PuTTY. Log into the switch. Kindly note you will have to log in with the user with administrative privileges. It does not have to be the admin user but a user who has administrative privileges.

To upload supportSave data interactively enter the copy support interactive command and provide input as prompted. Enter "no". Enter the server name or IP address of FTP server. Choose the file transfer protocol you want. Enter the username to authenticate to the FTP server.

Then choose the path or directory where support data has to be collected. We are choosing the root directory. Enter "all". Choose the default value "1". This would start the collection of support data. Once the supportSave is completed you can compress all the files to one folder and attach it to the service request.

Saving supportSave data to an attached USB device. You can use a Brocade-branded USB device to save the support data. The Brocade-branded USB device comes with factory configured default directories and interacts with the Network OS CLI.

Please refer to the indicated commands. Important notes continued. For VDX switches, operating in logical chassis mode you can use the rbridge-id "all" option to invoke supportSave on all nodes at the same time.

The rbridge-id of a cluster unit is equal to the domain ID of an FC switch. The following example shows the copy support command with the rbridge-id "all" option. Refer to the following for more information.

Thank you for watching.