Contacting Technical Support

This chapter describes the steps to take for contacting technical support. This chapter contains the following topics:

Cisco Support Information

If you purchased Cisco support through a Cisco reseller, contact the reseller directly. If you purchased support directly from Cisco, contact Cisco Technical Support at this URL:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/web/tsd-cisco-worldwide-contacts.html

Before contacting your customer support representative or Cisco TAC for assistance, you can perform the steps described in Gathering Information for Technical Support to reduce the amount of time spent resolving the issue.

Gathering Information for Technical Support

To prepare for contacting your customer support representative, follow these steps:


Note
Do not reload the module or the switch at least until you have completed Step 1. Some logs and counters are kept in volatile storage and will not survive a reload.

Procedure

Step 1

Collect switch information and configuration before and after the issue has been resolved.

Configure your Telnet or SSH application to log the screen output to a text file. Use the terminal length 0 command and then use the show tech-support details command.

Step 2

Capture the exact error codes you see in the CLI message logs.

  • show logging log

    Displays the error messages.

  • show logging last number

    Displays the last lines of the log.

Step 3

Answer the following questions before calling for technical support:

  • On which switch or port is the problem occurring?
  • Which Cisco Nexus 1000V software, driver versions, operating systems versions and storage device firmware are in your fabric?
  • ESX and vCenter Server software that you are running?
  • What is the network topology?
  • Were any changes being made to the environment (VLANs, adding modules, upgrades) prior to or at the time of this event?
  • Are there other similarly configured devices that could have this problem, but do not?
  • Where was this problematic device connected (which switch and interface)?
  • When did this problem first occur?
  • When did this problem last occur?
  • How often does this problem occur?
  • How many devices have this problem?
  • Were any traces or debug output captured during the problem time? What troubleshooting steps have you attempted? Which, if any, of the following tools were used?
    • Ethanalyzer, local, or remote SPAN
    • debug commands
    • traceroute, ping

  • Is your problem related to a software upgrade attempt?

    • What was the original Cisco Nexus 1000V version?
    • What is the new Cisco Nexus 1000V version?

Obtaining a File of Core Memory Information

Cisco customer support engineers often use files from your system for analysis. One such file contains memory information and is referred to as a core dump. The file is sent to a TFTP server or to a flash card in slot0: of the local switch. You should set up your switch to generate this file under the instruction of your customer support representative and send it to a TFTP server so that it can be emailed to them.

To generate a file of core memory information, or a core dump, use the command in the following example. 


switch# system cores tftp://10.91.51.200/jsmith_cores
switch# show system cores
Cores are transferred to tftp://10.91.51.200/jsmith_cores

Note
The filename (indicated by jsmith_cores) must exist in the TFTP server directory.

Copying Files

You might be required to move files to or from the switch. These files might include log, configuration, or firmware files.

Cisco Nexus 1000V always acts as a client. An ftp/scp/tftp session always originates from the switch and either pushes the files to an external system or pulls the files from an external system. 


File Server: 172.22.36.10
File to be copied to the switch: /etc/hosts

The copy command supports four transfer protocols and 12 different sources for files. 


switch# copy ?
bootflash: Select source filesystem
core: Select source filesystem
debug: Select source filesystem
ftp: Select source filesystem
licenses Backup license files
log: Select source filesystem
modflash: Select source filesystem
nvram: Select source filesystem
running-config Copy running configuration to destination
scp: Select source filesystem
sftp: Select source filesystem
slot0: Select source filesystem
startup-config Copy startup configuration to destination
system: Select source filesystem
tftp: Select source filesystem
volatile: Select source filesystem

Use the following syntax to use secure copy (scp) as the transfer mechanism:

"scp:[//[username@]server][/path]" 


switch# copy scp://user1@172.22.36.10/etc/hosts bootflash:hosts.txt
user1@172.22.36.10's password:
hosts 100% |*****************************| 2035 00:00

Back up the startup configuration to an SFTP server. 


switch# copy startup-config sftp://user1@172.22.36.10/test/startup-configuration.bak1
Connecting to 172.22.36.10...
User1@172.22.36.10's password:
switch#

Tip

Back up the startup configuration to a server daily before you make any changes. You can write a short script to be run on Cisco Nexus 1000V to perform a save and then back up the configuration. The script only needs to contain two commands:

  • copy running-configuration startup-configuration

  • copy startup-configuration tftp://server/name

To execute the script, enter the run-script filename command.