SOS Reports – Focused Diagnostic Collection

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sos report collects system configuration and diagnostic data into an archive, normally under /var/tmp. (Red Hat Documentation)

1. Generate a normal SOS report

Install if needed:

dnf install -y sos

Create report:

sos report

Non-interactive:

sos report --batch

Find the result:

ls -lh /var/tmp/sosreport*

List available plugins:

sos report --list-plugins

Run only the filesystem plugin:

sos report --batch --only-plugins filesys

Useful short form:

sos report --batch -o filesys

Plugin-specific options are enabled with -k plugin.option. (GitExtract)

For detailed ext2/ext3/ext4 information:

sos report --batch \
  -o filesys \
  -k filesys.dumpe2fs

dumpe2fs reads ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem metadata. (man7.org)

Before collecting, identify the filesystems:

findmnt

Only ext4:

findmnt -t ext4

Example:

/       /dev/mapper/rhel-root ext4
/boot   /dev/sda2            ext4
/data   /dev/sdb1            ext4

First find the device behind /boot:

findmnt -no SOURCE /boot

Example:

/dev/sda2

Generate filesystem information but skip dumpe2fs for that device:

sos report --batch \
  -o filesys \
  -k filesys.dumpe2fs \
  --skip-commands='*dumpe2fs*/dev/sda2*'

--skip-commands supports shell-style wildcard matching. (Debian Manpages)

A reusable version:

BOOTDEV=$(findmnt -no SOURCE /boot)

sos report --batch \
  -o filesys \
  -k filesys.dumpe2fs \
  --skip-commands="*dumpe2fs*${BOOTDEV}*"

Full system:
sos report

Specific area:
sos report -o <plugin>

Extra plugin data:
-k plugin.option

Exclude something:
--skip-commands='pattern'

For filesystem troubleshooting:

findmnt
   ↓
identify devices
   ↓
-o filesys
   ↓
-k filesys.dumpe2fs
   ↓
skip unwanted devices