Dell SupportAssist Version 1.
Notes, Cautions, and Warnings NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your computer. CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid the problem. WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death. © 2012 Dell Inc.
Contents Notes, Cautions, and Warnings...................................................................................................2 1 Overview.......................................................................................................................................5 Key Features.............................................................................................................................................................5 Features Supported With Dell Service Contracts.........
Confirming Connectivity Through The Proxy Server...............................................................................................23 Confirming E-Mail Connectivity..............................................................................................................................23 Viewing Troubleshooting Features.........................................................................................................................24 Configuring Troubleshooting Credentials............
Overview 1 Dell SupportAssist collects information about your computer hardware and software, and automatically creates support cases when issues arise. This helps Dell to provide you an enhanced, personalized, and efficient support experience. Dell uses this data to help solve common problems and design and market the products and services features you use most.
The following table provides a comparison of the features available with the Dell Basic Hardware and Dell ProSupport service contracts. Table 1. Feature Comparison Feature Basic Hardware ProSupport Remote monitoring Automated log and configuration collection Automatic support case creation Proactive parts dispatch Case Data Handling For increased performance, Dell SupportAssist case data is cached prior to display in the dashboard, and is not displayed in real time.
For more information about the collected troubleshooting information, see Accessing And Viewing The Troubleshooting Data. What's New In This Release • Proxy server support — Enables you to configure your proxy server settings in Dell SupportAssist. See Configuring Proxy Server Settings. • Role-based security — Restricts access to configure SupportAssist and test e-mail connectivity.
3. If you are not a U.S. customer, select your country code at the bottom of the support.dell.com page, or select All to see more choices. 4. Select the appropriate service or support link based on your need.
Installing, Upgrading, And Uninstalling Dell SupportAssist 2 This chapter provides information about installing, upgrading, and uninstalling Dell SupportAssist. Prerequisites The following are the prerequisites: • • Dell PowerEdge servers running Dell OpenManage Essentials version 1.0.
• Microsoft .Net Framework 4.0 • Microsoft ASP.Net • IIS 7.x • Web browser – Internet Explorer 8, 9, or 10 (32–bit) and Mozilla Firefox 11 or 12 (32–bit); supported only on Windows-based operating systems. . Hardware The following are the minimum recommended hardware configurations: Table 2. Minimum Hardware Configurations Hardware Medium Deployments Large Deployments Number of managed systems Up to 500 500 to 2000 Processor 6 cores (1.8 GHz minimum) 10 cores (1.
• Dell SupportAssist installation package. See Installing Dell SupportAssist Using The Dell SupportAssist Installation Package. • OpenManage Essentials installation package. See Installing Dell SupportAssist Using The Dell OpenManage Essentials Installation Package. Installing Dell SupportAssist Using The Dell SupportAssist Installation Package To install: 1. On the Dell OpenManage Essentials management server, right-click the SupportAssist installer package, then select Run as administrator.
– Preferred Email Language — From the list, select the desired language for SupportAssist e-mail notifications. – Email Address — Provide the e-mail address in the name@company.com format. It must contain a minimum of five characters and not exceed 50 characters. – 8. Receive case information via email upon alert generation — Select the check box to receive e-mail when SupportAssist creates a support case. Click Next. The Secondary Contact Information (Optional) dialog box is displayed. 9.
The Remote System User Credentials (troubleshooting credentials) dialog box is displayed. Troubleshooting credentials are required for SupportAssist to obtain troubleshooting information about your managed systems for Dell technical support. This troubleshooting information enables Dell technical support personnel to investigate, diagnose, and resolve the issues reported by SupportAssist. They are encrypted, and stored locally. 15.
NOTE: Microsoft User Access Control (UAC) requires that the installation be performed with elevated privileges. If you are logged in to the OpenManage Essentials server as an administrator-level user, you can double-click the installer package to install SupportAssist, but UAC displays the Open File - Security Warning dialog box that you must acknowledge in order to proceed.
CAUTION: Once you click Install, the Cancel button is disabled and the installation cannot be rolled back. 5. Click Install. The Install Wizard Completed dialog box is displayed. 6. Click Finish. SupportAssist opens in a web browser and displays the Getting Started dialog box that informs you to configure the proxy server settings and user credentials, if required.
Using Dell SupportAssist 3 This chapter provides information about using Dell SupportAssist. Launching Dell SupportAssist To launch SupportAssist: 1. On the OpenManage Essentials management server, do one of the following: – – – Double-click the Dell SupportAssist desktop icon. Click Start→ All Programs→ Dell OpenManage Applications→ Dell SupportAssist→ Dell SupportAssist. In OpenManage Essentials dashboard, click the Extensions tab, and then click the SupportAssist Launch link.
Column Description • • Progress The current support case progress status. The progress status may be: • • • • • • • • • • • Service Contract Case Access Error — SupportAssist cannot currently access the case information. Case Service Unavailable — Dell’s support case service is currently unavailable. Troubleshooting Tool Not Supported — This device does not support SupportAssist’s troubleshooting tools. Troubleshooting Opted Out — Customer has opted out of SupportAssist’s troubleshooting capabilities.
A progress indicator may appear at the bottom of the report to inform that SupportAssist is in the process of updating its cache of open support cases. NOTE: By default, the Case List is sorted by Date Opened, in descending order. See Customizing The Case List Display Data for more sorting options NOTE: Pre-existing support cases (opened prior to SupportAssist installation), and cases opened by means other than SupportAssist, do not appear in the Case List report.
Returning The Case List Data To The Default Sorting To return to the default Case List view (Date Opened, in descending order), click the Cases tab. The report refreshes to the default sorting criteria. Any new cases or updates to the current cases appear in the report. Cases that are closed since the last refresh no longer appear. Setting The Number Of Cases Displayed Per Page To change the total number of rows displayed in one page, select the number of cases to display from the Display Cases: list.
• Returning The Device Inventory Data To The Default Sorting • Setting The Number Of Devices Displayed Per Page . Sorting The Device Inventory Data By Column Name To sort the device inventory display data by column name, click any column header. The report refreshes to display the data in an ascending or descending order of the column header you clicked. Filtering The Device Inventory Data By Column Name And Keyword To filter the device inventory display data by column name and keyword: 1.
• Click the Refresh button on the web browser to regenerate the last sort operation. The web browser may display a dialog box with the following message: To display the webpage again, the web browser needs to resend the information you’ve previously submitted. If you were making a purchase, you should click Cancel to avoid a duplicate translation. Otherwise, click Retry to display the webpage again. In the dialog box that is displayed, click the Retry button to continue.
NOTE: SupportAssist provides support for Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) authentication protocol only. 4. Type the Proxy Server Address or Name: and Proxy Port Number: in the appropriate fields. NOTE: If the proxy credentials are not provided, SupportAssist connects to the proxy server as an anonymous user. 5. If the proxy server requires authentication, select Proxy requires authentication, and then provide the following information in the corresponding fields: – 6.
SupportAssist initiates an e-mail connectivity test. 3. If the test is successful, a confirmation e-mail message is sent to you. The message provides the connectivity status and a reminder to configure your devices for monitoring. The SupportAssist dashboard displays the following success message: A connectivity test has been successfully sent to Dell SupportAssist.
– 4. Linux – ESX/ESXi – PowerConnect – iDRAC7 Type the following troubleshooting credentials in the corresponding fields: NOTE: For PowerConnect Ethernet switches, the Username, Password, and Enable Password fields are optional. However, information must be provided for these fields if the PowerConnect Ethernet switch is configured with these details. – Username — The user name must contain one or more printable characters, and not exceed 104 characters.
NOTE: Ensure that you are logged on as a member of the OpenManage Essentials Administrators (OmeAdministrators) or Power Users (OmePowerUsers) group. If you are not logged on as a member of the OpenManage Essentials Administrators or Power Users group, the Profile and Connectivity Test links are disabled. 1. Click the Profile link at the top-right corner of the SupportAssist dashboard. The Contact Information page is displayed. 2. Click the Troubleshooting Features tab.
Identifying The User Name The Signed in as: notification at the top-right corner of the Dell SupportAssist dashboard enables you to identify your user name. Viewing And Updating The Profile Information To view and update user profile information: NOTE: Ensure that you are logged on as a member of the OpenManage Essentials Administrators (OmeAdministrators) or Power Users (OmePowerUsers) group.
Log files are purged from storage after 45 days. To view the Windows Event Log, invoke the Event Viewer application and then expand Applications and Services Logs. The DellIntegratedSupport log file contains entries from the dashboard service. The dashboard logs messages here that correspond to value of the Windows Registry key, WindowsEventLogLevel, or higher. In the dashboard installation directory, you can view one log file per day. The current log file is named log-file.
The Help dialog box is displayed. 2. In the Help dialog box : – Read the General product and copyright information. – Click the links under Dell SupportAssist Additional Information & Updates to view: * Dell Technical Support launch points, community forums, blogs, and much more * Dell product manuals for hardware and software products – 3.
Troubleshooting 4 This chapter describes procedures you can use to troubleshoot Dell SupportAssist issues Installing Dell SupportAssist SupportAssist installation requires elevated Microsoft User Authentication (UAC) privileges, and may fail if you attempt to install by double-clicking on the installer executable. If this occurs, install SupportAssist as follows: 1. Right-click the installer executable. 2. Select Run as administrator.
If this occurs: • • Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start system services. Check the log-file.txt file in the logs directory (typically, C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\Dell Integrated Support\logs in 64-bit operating systems and at C:\Program Files\Dell\Dell Integrated Support\logs in 32-bit operating systems) to see which component failed to load. Service Tag Warnings On rare occasions some cases may display an invalid Dell service tag warning.
If any cases display a warning icon in the Service Contract column: 1. Move the pointer over the warning icon to display a tooltip. 2. Click the Dell Support link displayed in the tooltip to open the service contract information page. You can obtain current service contract information for your Dell devices, obtain new service contracts, and so on. Service Contract Type Is Unknown The Service Contract column on Case List report displays unknown for all existing support cases.
Security The Profile and Connectivity Test links at the top-right corner of the Dell SupportAssist dashboard are disabled. If this occurs, ensure that you are logged on as a member of either the OpenManage Essentials Administrators (OmeAdministrators) or Power Users (OmePowerUsers) group.
