Objective

In order to provide fast time to resolution for all support tickets we'd like our customers to provide the following information when a support case is opened.

We have found that with this information we can reduce time to resolution in some cases by days.

Note: We have migrated our support portal to improve the efficiency and quality of the service we offer.

Accessing the Support Portal as a Client

The link to create a new support ticket for NMIS Suite products using the portal is as follows: Support Portal.

Clients may not have access to this by default. Therefore it is important to contact us if any account needs access.

You can contact us by sending an email to support.nmis@firstwave.com mentioning that you have trouble accessing the portal

Email

The new email to raise a ticket is support.nmis@firstwave.com. This will quickly generate a ticket in the support portal.

Email Structure for Opening a Case/Ticket

FirsWave customers may open support cases by sending an email to support.nmis@firstwave.com.

We recommend the following rules of engagement:

Open a separate ticket for each discreet problem.
Please avoid opening a ticket that contains multiple problems.
Begin a new email thread to describe a new problem.
Please avoid responding to an old email thread to address a new problem.

Each email sent should contain the following structure

Customer name

The company you are from.

Product

Version of the modules involved. Example: NMIS 9.4.0, opCharts 4.2.3.

Priority

What is priority of this issue - is it business impacting, a question/query etc.

Problem Definition

To describe the request, query, problem, error, failure, or bug, please provide screenshots that illustrate the problem in detail. Also, include the necessary steps to reproduce the error.

If the problem involves a specific node or model, provide at least three examples of the inadequate behavior you are experiencing. For example:

A critical issue has been identified in the NMIS tool, where the file that stores monitors and service configurations ('/nmis9/conf/Services.nmis') has been lost, leaving the file empty. This situation compromises the ability of NMIS and opCharts to correctly monitor services and requires immediate action to investigate and correct the underlying cause of the problem. This significantly affects the functionality of NMIS, as without this information, the monitors and service configurations cannot be correctly stored or used by the system. This can lead to a lack of proper service monitoring and a possible interruption in the system's ability to detect and respond to critical events. A screenshot confirming the current state of the file is attached.
We appreciate your prompt attention to this matter. Before this event, the monitoring personnel were in the usual task of deleting/creating new monitors through the GUI; each action they tried to perform, such as deleting or creating new monitors, showed a message that the page was not responding. By pressing "Wait", the action completed after a few seconds, as shown below.
We have restored the service using a nightly backup copy of the file, but unfortunately, the recent changes made today have been lost. It is not critical to recover these configured monitors as they can be recreated. However, it is vital to identify why the file is being emptied and ensure that this problem does not recur, especially since this is not the first time it has happened. It is important to note that the configurations in opCharts and the assignment of monitors to nodes remain even before the file is emptied.

Actions taken

Please provide details on the actions you have taken so far. For network or equipment diagnostics (such as SNMP queries, ping, MTR), run the corresponding commands. Also, if you have executed Linux or tool-specific commands, include these details in your report. This will help us better understand the situation and provide you with more effective support.

Restore the backed-up file from the previous night.

Is the issue able to be recreated?

Mention if the behavior has been recreated and what the results were.

Yes, we have recreated what we assume generated the error (normal operation), but the error has not reappeared; we assume there is something additional causing it, and it is important for us to identify it.

View/Track Tickets

Clients can log in to the portal and view/manage the tickets generated using the portal or via email.

We are confident that these changes will improve our ability to provide you with more efficient and effective support.

Importance of Ticket Format

It is vital that the ticket format is respected as described above.

This speeds up the attention provided by the support staff, allowing for quicker and more effective resolution of reported issues. We appreciate your cooperation in maintaining the structure and necessary details in each support request.

NMIS Support ZIP

The NMIS Support ZIP contains valuable information that will enable our support engineers to develop a solid vector on the problem. Attaching this Support ZIP to a new case will reduce time to resolution. While running the tool it will recognize some common problems and prompt the user for action.

Gather a NMIS support zip as described here: https://docs.community.firstwave.com/wiki/x/84mwv

The NMIS Support Tool

Examples NMIS Support Tool use cases:

### Typical case
[root@nmis-server ~]# /usr/local/nmis9/admin/support.pl action=collect

### When log files are too big for the default zip size, try this option.
[root@nmis-server ~]# /usr/local/nmis9/admin/support.pl action=collect maxzipsize=31457280

### If the problem is related to a specific node, focus the support tool on it.
[root@nmis-server ~]# /usr/local/nmis9/admin/support.pl action=collect node=r1

### If the problem is related to several nodes, we can focus the support tool on them.  Separate the node names by commas as below.
[root@nmis-server ~]# /usr/local/nmis9/admin/support.pl action=collect node=r1,r2,r3

### If the analysing the problem requires detailed data for all nodes we may run the command as follows.
[root@nmis-server ~]# /usr/local/nmis9/admin/support.pl action=collect node=*

OMK Cases

For cases related to OMK (opEvents, opCharts, opConfig, opAddress, opFlow, opReports, opHA) products, a NMIS and an OMK Support ZIP are required.

OMK Support Tool

The OMK Support Tool contains valuable information that will enable our support engineers to develop a solid vector on the problem. Attaching this Support ZIP to a new case will reduce time to resolution. While running this took it will recognize some common problems and prompt the user for actions.

Gather an OMK Support ZIP as described here: https://docs.community.firstwave.com/wiki/x/jICmv

Example OMK Support Tool use cases:

### Typical case
[root@nmis-server ~]# /usr/local/omk/bin/support.pl action=collect

### When log files are too big for the default zip size, try this option.
[root@nmis-server ~]# /usr/local/omk/bin/support.pl action=collect maxzipsize=31457280

References:

NMIS Device Troubleshooting Process

SNMP Throubleshooting

Troubleshooting device connectivity with NMIS

General Troubleshooting Checklist

Troubleshooting & Help