Users Guide

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Table Of Contents

SupportAssist Enterprise Version 1.1 User's Guide
Overview
- What is new in this release
- Overview of supported device types
- How SupportAssist Enterprise works
- SupportAssist Enterprise capabilities available with Dell service contracts
- System information collected by SupportAssist Enterprise
Getting started with SupportAssist Enterprise
- Setting up SupportAssist Enterprise for the local system
- Setting up SupportAssist Enterprise for remote devices
- Evaluating SupportAssist Enterprise
- Downloading the SupportAssist Enterprise installation package
- Installing, Upgrading, or Migrating to SupportAssist Enterprise
- Minimum requirements for installing and using SupportAssist Enterprise
- Installing SupportAssist Enterprise
- Upgrading SupportAssist Enterprise
  - Upgrading SupportAssist Enterprise by using the SupportAssist Enterprise installation package
  - Upgrading SupportAssist Enterprise by using the OpenManage Essentials installer package
- Migrating to SupportAssist Enterprise
- Using SupportAssist Enterprise without registration
- Registering SupportAssist Enterprise
- Setting up an SELinux enabled system to receive alerts
- Opening the SupportAssist Enterprise user interface
- Logging in to SupportAssist Enterprise
- Logging out of SupportAssist Enterprise
Adding devices
- Device types and applicable devices
- Adding a single device
- Importing multiple devices
- Exporting details of devices that were not imported
- Revalidating a device
Viewing cases and devices
- Viewing all support cases
- Viewing support cases for a specific device
- Case management options
- Viewing the device inventory
- Viewing the device overview pane
- Refining the displayed data
- Filtering the displayed data
- Clearing the data filter
- Sorting the displayed data
Device grouping
- Predefined device groups
- Viewing device groups
- Creating a device group
- Managing devices in a device group
- Managing the credentials of a device group
- Viewing and updating the contact information of a device group
- Editing device group details
- Deleting a device group
Using Extensions
- Types of extensions
- Support for setting up adapter or Remote Collector
- Getting started with inventorying devices managed by OpenManage Essentials or Microsoft System Center Operations Manager
- Adapters
- Remote Collectors
Managing device credentials
- Editing device credentials
- Account Credentials
- Credential Profiles
Maintaining SupportAssist Enterprise capability
- Enabling or disabling monitoring of a device
- Installing or upgrading OMSA by using SupportAssist Enterprise
- Configuring SNMP settings by using SupportAssist Enterprise
- Viewing and updating the contact information
- Configuring proxy server settings
- Connectivity test
  - Viewing the connectivity status
  - Performing the connectivity test
- Testing the case creation capability
- Clearing the System Event Log (SEL)
- Automatic update
  - Enabling or disabling automatic updates
- Deleting a device
- Opting in or opting out from ProSupport Plus recommendation report emails
Configuring email notifications
- Configuring email notification settings
- Configuring SMTP server settings
- Types of email notifications
Configuring collection settings
- Prerequisites for collecting system information
- Enabling or disabling the automatic collection of system information on case creation
- Enabling or disabling the periodic collection of system information from all devices
- Enabling or disabling the collection of identity information
- Enabling or disabling the collection of software information and the system log
- Enabling or disabling the automatic upload of collections
Viewing collections
- Viewing a collection from the Devices page
- Viewing a collection from the Collections page
- Refining collections based on a date range
- Configuration Viewer
  - Data views
  - Log types
- Items reported in periodic collections from servers
- Downloading and viewing a multiple device collection
- Multiple device configuration viewer
Using SupportAssist Enterprise to collect and send system information
- Setting up SupportAssist Enterprise for collecting and sending system information
- Starting the collection of system information from a single device
- Starting the collection of system information from multiple devices
- Uploading a collection
- Uploading a collection from a disconnected site
Understanding maintenance mode
- Enabling or disabling global-level maintenance mode
- Enabling or disabling device-level maintenance mode
SupportAssist Enterprise user groups
- SupportAssist Enterprise functions and user privileges
- Granting elevated or administrative privileges to users
- Adding users to the SupportAssist Enterprise user groups (Windows)
- Adding users to the SupportAssist Enterprise user groups (Linux)
Manually configuring SNMP settings
- Manually configuring the alert destination of a server
- Manually configuring the alert destination of iDRAC by using the web interface
- Manually configuring the alert destination of a chassis by using the web interface
- Manually configuring the alert destination of a networking device
Other useful information
- Monitoring servers for hardware issues
- Support for automatically installing or upgrading OMSA
- Support for automatically configuring SNMP settings
- Device correlation
- Detection of hardware issues in attached storage devices
- Support for Dell OEM servers
- Installing Net-SNMP (Linux only)
- Configuring sudo access for SupportAssist Enterprise (Linux)
- Ensuring successful communication between the SupportAssist Enterprise application and the SupportAssist server
- Accessing the SupportAssist Enterprise application logs
- Event storm handling
- Accessing the context-sensitive help
- Viewing SupportAssist Enterprise product information
- Uninstalling SupportAssist Enterprise
- Identifying the generation of a Dell PowerEdge server
Troubleshooting
- Installing SupportAssist Enterprise
- SupportAssist Enterprise registration
- Opening the SupportAssist Enterprise user interface
- Logging in to SupportAssist Enterprise
- Unable to add device
- Unable to add adapter
- Unable to add Remote Collector
- Disconnected
- Importing multiple devices
- OMSA not installed
- SNMP not configured
- New version of OMSA available
- Unable to configure SNMP
- Unable to verify SNMP configuration
- Unable to install OMSA
- Unable to verify OMSA version
- OMSA not supported
- Unable to reach device
- Unable to gather system information
- Insufficient storage space to gather system information
- Unable to export collection
- Unable to send system information
- Authentication failed
- Clearing System Event Log failed
  - Clearing the System Event Log by using iDRAC
  - Clearing the System Event Log by using OMSA
- Maintenance mode
- Auto update
- Unable to edit device credentials
- Automatic case creation
- Scheduled tasks
- SupportAssist Enterprise services
  - Verifying the status of SupportAssist Enterprise services (Windows)
  - Verifying the status of SupportAssist Enterprise services (Linux)
- Other services
- Security
SupportAssist Enterprise user interface
- SupportAssist Enterprise Registration Wizard
- Login page
- Cases page
- Devices page
- Device Groups page
- Manage Account Credentials
  - Add Account Credentials
  - Edit Account Credentials
- Manage Credential Profiles
  - Add Credential Profile
  - Edit Credential Profile
- Collections page
  - Collection overview pane
- Extensions
  - Adapters
  - Remote Collectors
    - Set Up Remote Collector
    - Remote Collector overview pane
- Settings
- Network Connectivity Test
- SupportAssist Enterprise test
Error code appendix
Related documents and resources
- Accessing documents from the Dell EMC support site
- Contacting Dell

Benefits of agent-based monitoring

Even though Dell's 12th and later generations of PowerEdge servers can be monitored through the agentless (iDRAC) method,

agent-based (OMSA) method has the following benefits:

● Alert generation capabilities of OMSA and iDRAC are not the same. In Dell's 13th or later generation of PowerEdge servers,

the alert generation capabilities of OMSA and iDRAC are almost similar. However, alerts from chipset and software RAID are

available only through OMSA.

● For devices with a ProSupport Plus, ProSupport Flex for Data Center, or ProSupport One for Data Center service contract

Dell's recommendations for operating system and software component versions are available only if the device is monitored

through OMSA.

●

OMSA is the only option available for monitoring 9th to 11th generation of PowerEdge servers.

Support for automatically installing or upgrading

OMSA

To monitor a device through the agent-based method, SupportAssist Enterprise requires the Dell OpenManage Server

Administrator (OMSA) agent to be installed and running on the device. The OMSA agent is an application that monitors the

health of various components of the device where it is installed. When OMSA is installed and running on a device, the OMSA

agent generates an alert whenever a hardware event occurs on the device. SupportAssist Enterprise receives the alert from

the device and processes the alert to identify if the alert indicates a hardware issue. For more information on OMSA, visit

www.dell.com/support/article/sln312492.

NOTE:

The SupportAssist Enterprise recommended version of OMSA may vary depending on the generation of the

PowerEdge server and the operating system running on the server. For information on the recommended versions of

OMSA, see the SupportAssist Enterprise Version 1.1 Support Matrix at https://www.Dell.com/ServiceabilityTools.

SupportAssist Enterprise has the capability to automatically download and install the recommended version of OMSA on a

device. By default, when a server is added for agent-based monitoring, SupportAssist Enterprise verifies if the recommended

version of OMSA is installed on the device.

● If OMSA is not installed on the device, SupportAssist Enterprise prompts for your confirmation to download and install the

recommended version of OMSA on the device. On confirmation, SupportAssist Enterprise downloads and installs OMSA in

the background. The OMSA installation status is displayed in the Status column on the Devices page. If you choose not to

install OMSA, the status of the device is displayed as

OMSA not installed. To install OMSA at a later time, you can

use the Tasks > Install / Upgrade OMSA option on the device overview pane.

● If OMSA is already installed on the device, SupportAssist Enterprise verifies if the version of OMSA matches with the

recommended OMSA version for SupportAssist Enterprise. If the existing version of OMSA is not the recommended version,

but supports direct upgrade to the recommended version of OMSA, SupportAssist Enterprise prompts for your confirmation

to download and upgrade OMSA on the device. The OMSA upgrade status is displayed in the Status column on the Devices

page. If you choose not to upgrade OMSA, the status of the device is displayed as New version of OMSA available.

To upgrade OMSA at a later time, use the Tasks > Install / Upgrade OMSA option on the device overview pane.

NOTE:

Direct upgrade to OMSA version n is supported only from the two previous versions (n-2) of OMSA. If direct

upgrade is not supported, you must manually download and upgrade OMSA on the device. For example, if OMSA version

7.0 is already installed on the device, but the recommended version of OMSA is 7.4, you must manually upgrade from

OMSA version 7.0 to 7.2. After upgrading to OMSA version 7.2, you can upgrade to OMSA version 7.4 using the More

Tasks > Install/Upgrade OMSA option on the device overview pane or you can manually download and upgrade to

OMSA version 7.4.

NOTE: When you allow or use SupportAssist Enterprise to install or upgrade OMSA, the downloaded packages of OMSA are

retained in the SupportAssist Enterprise installation folder. If a compatible version of OMSA was already downloaded during

an earlier operation, SupportAssist Enterprise does not download OMSA again. In this scenario, SupportAssist Enterprise

only installs or upgrades OMSA on the device using the already downloaded version of OMSA.

NOTE: The time taken to download OMSA is dependent on the internet download speed and network bandwidth.

If the recommended version of OMSA is installed and running on the device, the status of the device is displayed as OK.

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Other useful information