Sysreport

Sysreport is a system utility created to collect important system data, in order to assist the Red Hat Technical Support and Development Teams in solving customer problems. Sysreport gathers as much system information as is possible, while avoiding certain actions: the creation of a very large file; the invasion of the user's privacy; and the collection of information that could be detrimental to the integrity of the system.

To start Sysreport, you must be logged in as root. As root, at a shell prompt type the command sysreport.

You will then see the following message:

This utility will go through and collect some detailed information about the hardware and setup of your Red Hat Linux system. This information will be used to diagnose problems with your system, and will be considered confidential information. Red Hat will use this information for diagnostic purposes ONLY. Please wait while we collect information about your system. This process may take awhile to complete.... No changes will be made to your system during this process. NOTE: You can safely ignore a failed message.This only means a file we were checking for did not exist. Press ENTER to continue, or CTRL-C to quit.

As the message says, ignore any failed messages. Sysreport checks for all possible Red Hat Linux system packages. If you do not have every Red Hat Linux package installed, you will see failed messages.

After pressing [Enter], Sysreport will gather information about your system's configuration. When it is finished, you will see the following message:

Enter your first initial and last name with no spaces (example: jsmith): 

Enter the information requested, and press [Enter]. Sysreport will place a compressed TAR file in the /tmp directory beginning with the initial and last name you just entered. You will see a message telling you to email this file to the Red Hat support team. However, even if you do not need support, you can use this information to back up most of your system's configuration.

Use the command tar ztvf filename with the name of the compressed TAR file that you created to display a list of its contents.