How to collect IBM DSA log from

Linux, ESXi

Dynamic System Analysis (DSA) is a tool from IBM which collects software and hardware
information from a server running IBM Hardware. If you open a ticket with IBM support,
they will ask for DSA log from the server in question.

From IBM website:

IBM DSA Portable Edition is a system information collection and
analysis tool that is used by IBM xSeries(R) Service and Support
personnel to aid in the diagnosis of system problems.

DSA collects information about the following aspects of a system:

System configuration
Installed packages
Kernel Modules
Network interfaces and settings
Performance data and details for running processes
Hardware inventory, including PCI & USB information
IBM LightPath(TM) status
Service Processor status and configuration
Vital product data, firmware, and basic input/output system
(BIOS) information
Drive Health Information
ServeRAID configuration
LSI RAID & Controller configuration
Event logs for the operating system, ServeRAID controllers,
and service processors
To collect DSA logs from a server running Linux, Windows, ESXi and ESX

Download the portable DSA

Run the utility as root or Administrator
Collect the output that looks like 7915AC1_XXXXXXXX_20160316-062400.xml.gz
Send it to IBM
There is no utility for ESXi but you can run the command from Linux or Windows with the --vmware-
esxi user:password@ip-address options.

Collecting DSA logs on Linux

Download the DSA portable version for your Linux distribution.

Make it executable
To generate DSA output

# ./ibm_utl_dsa_dsyte1d-9.61_portable_rhel6_x86-64.bin

The default location for the output is /var/log/IBM_Support/

Provide the xml.gz file to IBM unless otherwise asked for other files.

To create HTML output files

# ./ibm_utl_dsa_dsyte1d-9.61_portable_rhel6_x86-64.bin -v
Writing HTML files to directory /tmp/7915AC1_XXXXX_20160316-071100

Tar and gzip the folder /tmp/7915AC1_XXXXX_20160316-071100 to download to provide to IBM

Collecting DSA logs from ESXi from a remote Linux machine

To collect DSA logs for an ESXi host, run the utility from a Linux machine which has ssh
access to the ESXi host. If you have special characters in the password, enclose it within
single quotes.

# ./ibm_utl_dsa_dsyte1d-9.61_portable_rhel6_x86-64.bin
--vmware-esxi root:'Password!'@esxi.example.com

The output will be available at /var/log/IBM_Support/