Generate QKVIEW diagnostic information on F5 BIG-IP

When you create a support case with F5 Support, the very first thing they will ask for is a qkview from the system. So, on this post we will go to the basics of generating this diagnostics information.

The qkview utility is a program that you can use to automatically collect configuration and diagnostic information from BIG-IP, BIG-IQ, F5 iWorkflow, and Enterprise Manager systems.

The qkview utility is an executable program that generates machine-readable (XML) diagnostic data and combines the data into a single compressed Tape ARchive (TAR) format file. You can upload this file, called a QKView file, to BIG-IP iHealth, or give it to F5 Technical Support to help them troubleshoot any issues.

Prerequisites

You must meet the following prerequisites to use these procedures:

• You have administrator or resource administrator access to the Configuration utility.
• You have an F5 support site single sign-on (SSO) account to access the BIG-IP iHealth diagnostics server.
• You have root access to the BIG-IP command line.

Running the qkview utility from the Configuration utility (BIG-IP or Enterprise Manager)

To run the qkview utility from the BIG-IP Configuration utility, perform one of the following procedures, as appropriate for your BIG-IP version:

Generate QKView –BIG-IP 13.0.0 and later

To run the qkview utility from the Configuration utility in BIG-IP 13.0.0 and later, perform the following steps:

Impact of procedure: The qkview utility runs a large number of commands when collecting information. This behavior may cause an additional performance burden on systems that are already under heavy load.

1. Log in to the Configuration utility.
2. Navigate to System > Support.
3. Click New Support Snapshot.
4. For Health Utility, click Generate QKView.
5. Click Start.
6. To download the output file, click Download.

Running the qkview utility – BIG-IP 12.1.2 and earlier

To run the qkview utility from the Configuration utility in BIG-IP 12.1.2 and earlier, perform the following steps:

Impact of procedure: The qkview utility runs a large number of commands when collecting information. This behavior may cause an additional performance burden on systems that are already under heavy load.

1. Log in to the Configuration utility.
2. Navigate to System > Support. The QKView check box is already selected.
3. Click Start.
4. When prompted, click Download Snapshot File to download the output file.

Running the qkview utility from the command line (BIG-IP, BIG-IQ, iWorkflow, or Enterprise Manager)

Impact of procedure: The qkview utility runs a large number of commands when collecting information. This behavior may cause an additional performance burden on systems that are already under heavy load.

Log in to the command line.

To run the qkview utility, type the following command:

qkview

The output file name displays after the command has completed.

Collect the output file from the /var/tmp/ directory by copying the file to an external host using a utility such as ftp or scp.

Note: You may also run qkview by running:

tmsh run /util qkview

Using qkview command-line options

Impact of procedure: Performing the following procedure should not have a negative impact on your system.

To view the list of qkview command line options, type the following command:

qkview -h 

For example, to reduce the performance burden of qkview, you can run qkview at the lowest possible priority by typing the following command:

nice -n 19 qkview  

Note: For heavily loaded systems, qkview may take a long time to finish running when using the nice -n 19 option.

To run the qkview command and specify the file size allowed, use the qkview -s option. For example, to specify no file size limit, type the following command:

qkview -s0