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Using the InterSystems Diagnostic Report

InterSystems provides a mechanism to run a Diagnostic Report on your InterSystems IRIS® data platform instance. The Diagnostic Report is a snapshot of information about an instance that should be run and sent to the InterSystems Worldwide Response Center (WRC)Opens in a new tab to help diagnose system problems. For more details on the type of information collected, see the Diagnostic Report Contents section.

This topic describes how to configure and run the Diagnostic Report as a task from the Management Portal. For more information on this task, see the %SYS.Task.DiagnosticReportOpens in a new tab entry in the InterSystems Class Reference.

Running the Diagnostic Report Task

The most direct way to generate the report is by going to the Diagnostic Report page (System Operation > Diagnostic Reports) of the Management Portal and entering the appropriate information for the Diagnostic Report task. You can edit this information at any time by returning to this page. If you do not wish to edit any of the fields, click Run to generate the report using the current settings.

If you do not enter any information and click Run, the task generates a detailed report and places it in the manager’s directory of the InterSystems IRIS instance (install-dir\mgr) as an HTML file. The file name is in CustomerNameYYYYMMDDHHMM.html format.

For example, on September 24, 2023 at 8:46 p.m., running the Diagnostic Report task with a license key issued to MyCompany on an instance installed in C:\MyInstallDir generates the following report file:

C:\MyInstallDir\mgr\MyCompany201909242046.html

There are several fields on the page you can set that affect when the task runs, where the file is saved, and whether or not to send the file to the WRC. Configuring Diagnostic Report Settings describes these settings. If you click Close, your changes are discarded and the report task does not run.

Viewing the Diagnostic Report Task History

Click Task History at the top of the Diagnostic Report page to display the history for the Diagnostic Report task. (See Using the Task Manager for information about tasks and task history.)

Configuring Diagnostic Report Settings

The InterSystems IRIS installation contains a predefined on-demand Diagnostic Report task. The first time you go to the Diagnostic Report page, fill in the pertinent information to update the settings for this task. Depending on which fields you enter, you have the following choices of what to do with the Diagnostic Report:

  1. To save the report to a specific archive directory other than the manager’s directory, enter a directory name.

  2. To send the report to the WRC, enter information in the outgoing mail fields.

  3. To both save and send the report, enter the information from the two previous options.

  4. To run the report automatically on a regular schedule, enable WRC HealthCheck.

The following list contains the settings for the Diagnostic Report and a description of each:

  • Directory for archived reports — location to store the reports. Defaults to the manager’s directory, install-dir\mgr, if you do not enter any information on the page. If you leave this setting blank and enter outgoing mail settings the report is not saved in the manager’s directory. Click Browse to select an existing directory.

Information required to send the report directly to the WRC — if you enter the outgoing mail settings, the report is sent to WRCHealthCheck@InterSystems.com.

  • Existing WRC issue number — WRC problem number (6 digits) related to this run of the Diagnostic Report. To enter a new problem, contact the WRC or enter your problem into WRC DirectOpens in a new tab.

    The task runs with the WRC issue number only once and then clears this setting.

  • Name of IP address of server for outgoing mail — address of your outgoing SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) mail server.

  • Username for authenticated SMTP and Password — only required for SMTP authentication with the SMTP server. See RFC 2554Opens in a new tab for details.

  • Address for the “From:” field in outgoing mail — email address to appear in the sender field. Required if you enter SMTP server information; defaults to DefaultDiagnosticReport@InterSystems.com.

  • Address for the “Reply-To:” field in outgoing mail — a valid email address at your company able to receive automated configuration messages from InterSystems.

  • Addresses for the “CC:” field in outgoing mail — additional email addresses to receive the report.

  • Enable automatic WRC HealthCheck updates — select this check box to send periodic reports to the WRC. InterSystems highly recommends that you enable the WRC HealthCheck feature. If selected, the Diagnostic Report task runs at regular intervals and sends the report to the WRC. These regular reports allow the WRC to better assist you. Selecting this feature requires you to enter the SMTP server information.

    Important:

    The report includes private application information. InterSystems keeps all data strictly confidential.

  • Run the automatic WRC HealthCheck updates every number of days at this time — if you enable WRC HealthCheck, the task manager saves the frequency (defaults to 7 days) and time (defaults to the InterSystems IRIS installation time) information for when to run the Diagnostic Report.

Additional information for the WRC:

  • Primary purpose of this instance — choose whether you use this instance of InterSystems IRIS for development, testing, quality assurance, or production.

  • Any Ad Hoc content applied that is not in $ZV — enter ad hoc content you have applied that does not appear in the $ZVersion special variable.

  • The type and number of CPUs present

  • The total amount of physical memory — enter the amount of physical memory on the machine.

  • Other details of the hardware this system uses

  • Method used to back up this system (InterSystems, OS, External, other) — enter the methods you use to back up your system.

  • Other relevant information about this instance — enter any special notes you want to include with the report.

The Diagnostic Report task retains the information you enter in all but one of the settings; the task runs with the WRC issue number only once and then clears it. You cannot edit task settings while the report is running.

Diagnostic Report Contents

When the Diagnostic Report task runs, it creates an HTML log file containing both basic and advanced information, which is used by the WRC to resolve issues. The following sections describe the sections of the report:

Note:

On Microsoft Windows 32-bit systems the report uses the following third-party utilities developed by SysInternals Software:

  • PsInfo.Exe — Displays extended system information

  • PsList.Exe — Displays process information at the operating system level

Basic Information

The basic information includes the following categories:

General

Displays the following information:

  • Full host name (with domain)

  • IP address

  • User name

  • Date and time report was created

  • InterSystems IRIS version string ($ZVersion)

  • InterSystems IRIS objects version string

  • InterSystems ODBC/JDBC server version information

  • National Language Support (NLS) information

  • Free block count information

  • Operating system version (uname -a on UNIX® systems)

  • Extended system information (only on Windows systems if the PsInfo.Exe utility is in the InterSystems IRIS Bin directory).

Key File

Displays active license information including the location of the license key file, the contents of the license key, and license availability ($System.License.CKEY() output).

License Counts

Displays license usage information ($System.License.ShowCounts() output).

%SS

Displays system status information (^%SS output — two snapshots taken thirty seconds apart).

Operating System Processes List

Displays operating system process information (only on Windows systems if the PsList.Exe utility is in the InterSystems IRIS Bin directory).

Spin Counts

Displays spin count information.

CPF File

Displays the contents of the active InterSystems IRIS configuration file (iris.cpf).

SysLog

Displays the contents of the InterSystems IRIS system error log; see InterSystems IRIS System Error Log for more information.

Security

Displays a listing of the following security information:

  • Security parameters

  • Services

  • Resources

  • Roles

  • Applications

  • System users

  • Current login failures

  • Domains

  • SSL configurations

Audit

Displays audit information including a listing of events and the contents of the audit log database.

messages

Displays the contents of the messages.log (if its size does not exceed 5MB).

Note:

To produce a report that contains only the basic information:

  1. Navigate to the View Task Schedule page (System Operation > Task Manager > View Task Schedule).

  2. In the Diagnostic Report row, click Details.

  3. On the Task Details page (System Operation > Task Manager > View Task Schedule > Task Details), click Edit.

  4. On the Task Scheduler Wizard page, clear the AdvancedReport check box, and click Finish.

  5. On the Task Details page (System Operation > Task Manager > View Task Schedule > Task Details), in the Diagnostic Report row, click Run.

  6. On the Run Task page, click Perform Action Now.

  7. Click Close.

Advanced Information

The advanced information includes the following categories:

irisstat Snapshot #1

Displays output of the InterSystems statistics utility (irisstat) run with the following options:

irisstat -e2 -m-1 -n3 -j5 -g1 -m3 -L1 -u-1 -v1 -p-1 -c-1 -q1 -w2 -S-1 -E-1 -N65535 -s<mgr_dir>

For more information about the irisstat utility, see Monitoring InterSystems IRIS Using the irisstat Utility.

irisstat Snapshot #2

Displays the output of the irisstat utility run with the same options as the first snapshot one minute later.

If the irisstat output files are too large, they are saved to a separate file and not sent with the report. If separate files were created, a message similar to the following is posted in the irisstat section of the Diagnostic Report:

File /iris/iristestsys/mgr/irisstat201103151102.html is too big to be appended to 
the Log File. A copy has been left in the Directory. 

Although these files have an html extension, they are plain text and should be viewed in a text editor rather than a browser.

Network Status

Displays network information — output of the following utilities:

  • ipconfig /all (only Windows systems)

  • netstat -an

  • netstat -s

Dump License

Displays local license table entries and key information ($System.License.DumpLocalInUse() and $System.License.DumpKeys() output).

Dump Files in Manager’s Directory

Displays a list of core or *.dmp files, if any.

GloStat

Displays global statistic information (^GLOSTAT output —ten snapshots taken every ten seconds).

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