2 Working With the sos Command

The sos command collects information about a system such as hardware configuration, software configuration, and operational state. You can also use the sos report command to enable diagnostics and analytical functions on the current system.

The generated report is useful in cases where you're being helped by Oracle Support in troubleshooting a problem in the system. The support representative can use the report to obtain an exact picture of the system, its resources, and all the applications and processes that exist in the system, and all other data that can help find the causes of the issues you're experiencing.

The sos utility requires the installation of the sos package. To install the package, type:

sudo dnf install sos

Running the sos Command

To obtain a list of options and arguments that you can use with the sos utility, type:

sos report -h

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit

Global Options:
  --batch               Do not prompt interactively
  --config-file CONFIG_FILE
                        specify alternate configuration file
...

Creating the SOS Report

To collect all diagnostic and configuration information from the system and its installed applications, run the following command:

sudo sos report

sosreport (sosreport version)
...
The generated archive may contain data considered sensitive and its
content should be reviewed by the originating organization before being
passed to any third party.
...
Press ENTER to continue, or CTRL-C to quit.

Every time you issue the sos utility, the utility always prompts you whether to continue or to quit. If you press Enter to continue, you can use an optional prompt to specify a case ID for the report.

Optionally, please enter the case id that you are generating this report for []:

If you're generating the report as related to a specific troubleshooting case, you can enter the case ID at this prompt.

After you have provided information as prompted, the command proceeds to generate the report, which can take a considerable time to complete. At the end of the process, the screen displays a message similar to the following:

Your sosreport has been generated and saved in:
        /var/tmp/sosreport-hostname-case#-datestamp-ID.tar.xz

 Size   20.62MiB
 Owner  root
 sha256 428f7b4118acd2d349bb022946877d853aa0eefbb4d340af3839810dc634b8b7

Please send this file to your support representative.

The report is generated as an xa-compressed tar file in the /var/tmp directory. In the report's file name, the ID is dynamicly created by the utility.

Important:

As indicated before, the report can be useful in cases where you engage Oracle Support to diagnose and troubleshoot issues that you have observed in the system. However, the report contains sensitive information specific to your company. Ensure that you review the contents of the report and identify sensitive information before sending the report to any third-party.

Hiding Sensitive Information in an SOS Report

To secure sensitive information before sending the report externally, you can use the clean functionality of the sos utility. This functionality tries to obfuscate any information in the report that's considered to be sensitive, such as the following information:

• IPv4 addresses and networks (network topologies are retained)

• MAC addresses

• Host names

• Usernames

• Any words or phrases that you specify with the --keyword option

To use the sos clean utility on a generated report, type the following command and follow the prompts that are displayed:

sudo sos clean /var/tmp/sosreport-hostname-case#-datestamp-ID.tar.xz

...
Users should review any resulting data and/or archives generated or processed by
this utility for remaining sensitive content before being passed to a third
party.

Press ENTER to continue, or CTRL-C to quit.

At the end of the process, the screen displays a message similar to the following:

Successfully obfuscated 1 report(s)

A mapping of obfuscated elements is available at
	/var/tmp/sosreport-host0-2022-08-08-qxbegcn-private_map

The obfuscated archive is available at
	/var/tmp/sosreport-host0-2022-08-08-qxbegcn-obfuscated.tar.xz

	Size	3.62MiB
	Owner	root

Please send the obfuscated archive to your support representative and keep the mapping file private

The resulting report that has been scrubbed of sensitive information is also stored in /var/tmp. However, the file name itself is revised. The hostname is generic, and importantly, obfuscated is added to the file name so you can identify the clean version of the report.

Caution:

Consider the following about the sos clean utility:

• The clean functionality is a best-effort method to identify and then mask sensitive information. However, sos clean doesn't guarantee that the coverage of the masking process is complete in a specific system.

• Reports that are processed with the sos clean command obfuscate certain details which a third-party such as a support representative might need to provide better help when troubleshooting problems.

• You must always audit archives and reports that are generated by the sos utility before sending any of these files externally.

To automatically clean any sos report that you create, use the following command syntax when generating a report:

sudo sos report --clean

For more information, see the sos-report(1) and sos-clean(1) manual pages. See also https://github.com/sosreport/sos/wiki.

Extra Sample Usages of the sos Command

The sos report command can also be used with other options. For example, to only list available plugins and plugin options in the report, type:

sudo sos report -l

The plugins that are displayed by the command are grouped according to the following sections:

• All enabled plugins
• All disabled plugins
• Available options for all the plugins
• Available plugin options

See the sos-report(1) manual page for information about how to enable or disable plugins and how to set values for plugin options.

You can also obtain only information specific to a problem area and specify options to tailor the report that's generated. For example, to record only information about Apache and Tomcat and to gather all the Apache logs, type:

sudo sos report -o apache,tomcat -k apache.log=on

To enable all the Boolean options for all the loaded plugins (excluding the rpm.rpmva plugin) and verify all packages:

sudo sos report -a -k rpm.rpmva=off

For more information, see the sos-report(1) and sos-clean(1) manual pages. See also https://github.com/sosreport/sos/wiki.

Reviewing Information Gathered by sosreport

The sos command is automatically configured to collect hardware information, system configuration files, and log data. You can enable and disable modules to suit your own data protection needs.

Note:

The module information that's provided in this table relates to sos 3.9. To verify the modules you have installed, run the sos report command. The output includes the version of the sos utility that you're running.

Disabling modules prevents the sos command from collecting certain details that might be needed for advanced troubleshooting, such as networking information.

Module	Information Type	Included Files
anaconda	Installation log files	/root/install.log /root/install.log.syslog /var/log/anaconda /var/log/anaconda.*
auditd	Audit log files	/etc/audit/auditd.conf /etc/audit/audit.rules /var/log/audit/*
boot	System boot process details	/etc/milo.conf /etc/silo.conf /boot/efi/efi/redhat/elilo.conf /etc/yaboot.conf /boot/yaboot.conf
cron	Root user cron commands	/etc/cron* /etc/crontab /var/log/cron /var/spool/cron
cups	Printer log files	/etc/cups/*.conf /etc/cups/*.types /etc/cups/lpoptions /etc/cups/ppd/*.ppd /var/log/cups/*
date	Context data	/etc/localtime
devicemapper	Hardware details
filesys	List of all files in use	/proc/fs/* /proc/mounts /proc/filesystems /proc/self/mounts /proc/self/mountinfo /proc/self/mountstats /proc/[0-9]*/mountinfo /etc/mtab /etc/fstab
grub2	Kernel and system start-up configuration	/boot/efi/EFI/*/grub.cfg /boot/grub2/grub.cfg /boot/grub2/grubenv /boot/grub/grub.cfg /boot/loader/entries /etc/default/grub /etc/grub2.cfg /etc/grub.d/*
hardware	Hardware details	/proc/interrupts /proc/irq /proc/dma /proc/devices /proc/rtc /var/log/mcelog /sys/class/dmi/id/* /sys/class/drm/*/edid
host	Host identification	/etc/sos.conf /etc/hostid
kernel	System log files	/etc/conf.modules /etc/modules.conf /etc/modprobe.conf /etc/modprobe.d /etc/sysctl.conf /etc/sysctl.d /lib/modules/*/modules.dep /lib/sysctl.d /proc/cmdline /proc/driver /proc/kallsyms /proc/lock* /proc/buddyinfo /proc/misc /proc/modules /proc/slabinfo /proc/softirqs /proc/sys/kernel/random/boot_id /proc/sys/kernel/tainted /proc/timer* /proc/zoneinfo /sys/firmware/acpi/* /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/* /sys/kernel/livepatch/* /sys/module/*/parameters /sys/module/*/initstate /sys/module/*/refcnt /sys/module/*/taint /sys/module/*/version /sys/devices/system/clocksource/*/available_clocksource /sys/devices/system/clocksource/*/current_clocksource /sys/fs/pstore /var/log/dmesg
libraries	List of shared libraries	/etc/ld.so.conf /etc/ld.so.conf.d/*
logs	System log files	/etc/syslog.conf /etc/rsyslog.conf /etc/rsyslog.d /run/log/journal/* /var/log/auth.log /var/log/auth.log.1 /var/log/auth.log.2* /var/log/boot.log /var/log/dist-upgrade /var/log/installer /var/log/journal/* /var/log/kern.log /var/log/kern.log.1 /var/log/kern.log.2* /var/log/messages* /var/log/secure* /var/log/syslog /var/log/syslog.1 /var/log/syslog.2* /var/log/udev /var/log/unattended-upgrades
lvm2	Hardware details
memory	Hardware details	/proc/pci /proc/meminfo /proc/vmstat /proc/swaps /proc/slabinfo /proc/pagetypeinfo /proc/vmallocinfo /sys/kernel/mm/ksm /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
networking	Network identification	/etc/dnsmasq* /etc/host* /etc/inetd.conf /etc/iproute2 /etc/network* /etc/nftables /etc/nftables.conf /etc/nsswitch.conf /etc/resolv.conf /etc/sysconfig/nftables.conf /etc/xinetd.conf /etc/xinetd.d /etc/yp.conf /proc/net/* /sys/class/net/*/device/numa_node /sys/class/net/*/flags /sys/class/net/*/statistics/*
pam	Login security settings	/etc/pam.d/* /etc/security
pci	Hardware details	/proc/bus/pci /proc/iomem /proc/ioports
process	List of all running processes and process details	/proc/sched_debug /proc/stat /proc/[0-9]*/smaps
processor	Hardware details	/proc/cpuinfo /sys/class/cpuid /sys/devices/system/cpu
rpm	Installed software packages	/var/lib/rpm/* /var/log/rpmpkgs
sar	Resource and usage data	/var/log/sa/*
selinux	Security settings	/etc/sestatus.conf /etc/selinux /var/lib/selinux
services	All defined system services	/etc/inittab /etc/rc.d/* /etc/rc.local
ssh	SSH configuration	/etc/ssh/ssh_config /etc/ssh/sshd_config
x11	GUI logs for the X Window System	/etc/X11/* /var/log/Xorg.*.log /var/log/Xorg.*.log.old /var/log/XFree86.*.log /var/log/XFree86.*.log.old
yum	Installed software packages	/etc/pki/consumer/cert.pem /etc/pki/entitlement/*.pem /etc/pki/product/*.pem /etc/yum/* /etc/yum.repos.d/* /etc/yum/pluginconf.d/* /var/log/dnf.log