You can use the Support Bundle feature in NSX-T Data Center to collect log files from Antrea container cluster nodes for detailed troubleshooting and diagnostic purposes.

NSX-T can upload the support bundles to an NSX Manager node from where you triggered the support bundle collection request, or it can upload the support bundles to a remote file server that you specified in the request. If the support bundles are uploaded to an NSX Manager node, you can download them to your local computer.

A support bundle for an Antrea container cluster contains log files for the following components:
  • Antrea Controller
  • Antrea Agent
  • Management Plane Adapter
  • Central Control Plane Adapter
  • Open vSwitch
Supported and Unsupported Features
  • From an NSX Manager node, you can start only a single support bundle collection request. But, you can collect support bundles for multiple Antrea container clusters with a single collection request.
  • If you are using an NSX Manager cluster with three Management nodes, you can start a separate support bundle collection request simultaneously from each NSX Manager node. However, the container cluster that you select in each collection request must be different.

    For example, assume that you have started a support bundle collection request on NSX Manager node A. In this collection request, you selected container cluster nodes 1 and 2 from container cluster X. Simultaneously, if you start a second collection request on NSX Manager node B for the container cluster nodes 3 and 4 in the container cluster X, one of these two collection requests will fail. You must wait for the first collection request to complete before triggering the second request for the same container cluster.

  • Collection of support bundles from NSX Manager Central CLI is currently not supported for Antrea container clusters.

Prerequisites

Antrea container clusters are registered to NSX-T Data Center.

Procedure

  1. From your browser, log in to an NSX Manager at https://nsx-manager-ip-address.
  2. Navigate to System > Support Bundle.
    The Request Bundle page opens.
    Important: NSX Manager UI fetches the information about registered Antrea container clusters when you start the NSX Manager application in the browser. If the application UI is already open, it does not fetch the Antrea container cluster registration information automatically. This behavior is expected and per the current UI design. If you have registered the first Antrea container cluster after the NSX Manager application is opened, ensure that you refresh the browser after navigating to the Request Bundle page. A manual refresh ensures that you can select Antrea container clusters as the target nodes in the next step of this procedure.

    This manual browser refresh is required only once, and not every time after a new Antrea container cluster is registered to NSX-T Data Center.

  3. Select the target nodes to include in the support bundle request.
    The available types of nodes are:
    • Antrea container clusters
    • NSX Manager nodes
    • Edges
    • Hosts
    • Public Cloud Gateways

    A single support bundle request can include a mix of different types of nodes in the NSX-T environment. For example, you can select nodes from Antrea container clusters, NSX Manager nodes, and NSX Edge nodes in the same collection request. However, the scope of this procedure is to explain the workflow of creating a support bundle collection request for only Antrea container clusters.

  4. From the Type drop-down menu, select Antrea Container Clusters.
  5. From the Container Cluster list, select the name of a container cluster.
    If the list has several container clusters to select from, enter the first few characters of the container cluster name. System filters the list and displays only the container cluster names that match the characters you have entered.
    All nodes in the selected container cluster are displayed in the Available list.
  6. Select one or multiple nodes from the container cluster and click the right arrow to move them to the Selected list.
    To select nodes from multiple Antrea container clusters in a single collection request, repeat steps 4 and 5 for each container cluster.
  7. (Optional) In the Log age (days) text box, keep the default value or enter the specific number of days' worth of logs that you want the support bundle to include. Specify the log age as a number of days.
  8. (Optional) To upload the support bundle to a remote file server, specify the file server settings.
    1. Enter an IP address or the host name of the remote file server.
    2. Enter the file transfer protocol and port number. Default port number is 22.
    3. Enter the user name and password to access the remote file server.
    4. Enter the path to the destination folder where the support bundle file is to be uploaded.
    When remote file server settings are not specified, the support bundle is uploaded to the NSX Manager node from where you triggered the support bundle collection request.
  9. Click Start Bundle Collection.
    The runtime details of the collection request are displayed on the Status page. The collection process takes a few minutes. The time taken to create the support bundle depends on the number of log files to collect from each node in the container cluster.
  10. After the collection process is complete, click Download.
    The support bundle file is saved on your local computer. If you had specified remote file server settings, the Download button is not displayed in the UI.

Results

A support bundle collection request generates a single tape archive (TAR) file with the following file naming convention: nsx_support_archive_datestamp_timestamp.tar

Support bundle collection request can fail in the following situations:
  • If the Antrea NSX Adapter on a container cluster fails when the support bundle request is in progress, the collection of logs fails for that container cluster.
  • If the NSX Manager Appliance fails or is not reachable when the support bundle request is in progress, the collection of logs fails. Until the connectivity issue to the NSX Manager is resolved, you can use the native command line tool of Antrea (antctl) to collect log files from the Antrea container clusters.
Partial Success Scenario
Consider that you selected 10 nodes from a single Antrea container cluster for the support bundle collection. During the collection process, log files were collected successfully from five nodes in the container cluster, but were not collected for the remaining five nodes. In other words, the collection request succeeded partially. In this situation, the collection request status is Successful and the support bundle file (TAR) contains logs for the five successful nodes.

What to do next

  1. Extract the TAR file. The following files are displayed.
    File Name Description
    manifest.json

    This file contains a summary of the collection request results and the properties of the collection request.

    For example, it contains information about:
    • The nodes for which the collection succeeded.
    • The nodes for which the collection failed.
    • The cluster IDs and node IDs that were used in the collection request.
    nsx_antrea_cluster-id.tgz

    A single .tgz archive file is created for each Antrea container cluster in the support bundle.
  2. Extract the nsx_antrea_cluster-id.tgz file. The following files are displayed.
    File Name Description
    adapters.tar.gz

    This archive file contains the log files of the Management Plane Adapter and the Central Control Plane Adapter.

    agent_node_name.tar.gz

    This archive file contains the log files of the Antrea Agent and Open vSwitch. One archive file is generated for each container cluster node in the collection request.

    On extracting this archive file, you can view the following files:
    • agentinfo file
    • Agent logs at /logs/agent
    • Open vSwitch logs at /logs/ovs
    • OpenFlow dump
    • IPtables
    • Route dump
    clusterinfo

    This file is generated for each container cluster in the support bundle request. The file contains information about the various Kubernetes resources that are collected from the Kubernetes API server, such as Pods, Nodes, Deployments, ReplicaSets, DaemonSets, and so on.
    controller.tar.gz

    This archive file contains the log files of the Antrea Controller.

    On extracting this archive file, you can view the following files:
    • controllerinfo file
    • Controller logs at /logs/controller