How to use snap command on AIX

If you have a hardware or software fault then running snap will give you important information that will help with the diagnosis of the fault. Also if you log a call with IBM they will quite often ask for a snap to be sent to them via email or ftp

Some examples of snap commands are shown below.

snap -r Always run snap -r to remove old snap information

snap -gLic Includes LVM information

snap -bgc Includes SSA information

snap -gRc Includes SCSI RAID information - in the pcixscsi.snap or in pciscsiraid.snap (find these at the bottom of snap contents list)

snap -d new_directory -ac Includes ALL information. Creates the snap output file in a directory specified by "new_directory". This directory should not exist as snap will create it. Without the -d flag the snap output is saved to /tmp/ibmsupt

Command syntax

snap [ options... ] [ -d dir ] [ -v component ]

-a Collects all system configuration information.
-A Collects asynchronous (tty) information.
-b Collects SSA information.
-c Collects a compressed tar image of all files in the specified directory.
-D Collects dump and /unix information.
-d dir Specifies an output directory.
-f Collects file system information.
-g Collects the output of the lslpp -hBc command.
-G Includes predefined ODM files in general information.
-i Collects installation debug vital product data information.
-k Collects kernel information.
-l Collects programming language information.
-L Collects LVM information.
-n Collects Network File System (NFS) information.
-N Doesn't check for free space.
-o outdevice Compresses the snapshot to a diskette or a tape.
-p Collects printer information.
-r Deletes any output from the /tmp/ibmsupt directory.
-R Collects SCSI RAID information.
-s Collects Systems Network Architecture information.
-S Includes security files in general information.
-t Collects TCP/IP information.
-v component Shows the output of the command s that have been executed by snap.

Example output from running snap -ac

Checking space requirement for general information...................... done.
Checking space requirement for tcpip information....

WARNING: Command 'netstat' is hanging due to an unresponsive server.
This will affect the filesystem requirement calculation and invalidate it.
If 'snap' fails due to lack of space it is due to this problem.

................................................ done.
Checking space requirement for nfs information............... done.
Checking space requirement for kernel information............... done.
Checking space requirement for printer information..... done.
Checking space requirement for dump information....... done.
Checking space requirement for sna information.../var/sna not found
 done.
Checking space requirement for filesys information........................ done.
Checking space requirement for async information.................. done.
Checking space requirement for lang information.......... done.
Checking space requirement for XS25 information..............................done.
Checking space requirement for install information... done.
Checking space requirement for ssa information.......... done.
Checking space requirement for logical volume manager information..................
Checking space requirement for Enhanced CLVM information..../tmp/ch.log.* not found
 done.
Checking space requirement for multicpu  trace files
/var/adm/ras/trcfile: No such file or directory
done.
..done.
Checking space requirement for platform/scanout informationPlatform dump is not supported on this system.
done.