Bug ID 751009: Generating Qkviews or tcpdumps via GUI or running the 'ihealth' command removes /var/tmp/mcpd.out

Last Modified: Jul 12, 2023

Affected Product(s):
BIG-IP TMOS(all modules)

Known Affected Versions:
13.0.0, 13.0.0 HF1, 13.0.0 HF2, 13.0.0 HF3, 13.0.1, 13.1.0, 13.1.0.1, 13.1.0.2, 13.1.0.3, 13.1.0.4, 13.1.0.5, 13.1.0.6, 13.1.0.7, 13.1.0.8, 13.1.1, 13.1.1.2, 13.1.1.3, 14.0.0, 14.0.0.1, 14.0.0.2, 14.0.0.3, 14.0.0.4, 14.0.0.5, 14.0.1, 14.1.0, 14.1.0.1

Fixed In:
15.0.0, 14.1.0.2, 14.0.1.1, 13.1.1.4

Opened: Nov 26, 2018

Severity: 3-Major

Symptoms

After generating a Qkview or collecting a tcpdump via the BIG-IP GUI, or using the 'tmsh run util ihealth' command to do the equivalent, the /var/tmp/mcpd.out file is missing.

Impact

The file /var/tmp/mpcd.out is a debug file used by mcpd, primarily for collecting debug-level log information from MCPD. The file being deleted causes challenges with trying to collect diagnostic information from a BIG-IP system (turning on mcpd debug logging), because it now requires a service impact (restarting mcpd). Additionally, may cause challenges in managing disk space on /shared filesystem, as mcpd keeps writing to a deleted file, and it cannot be truncated.

Conditions

-- Generating a Qkview or collecting a tcpdump via the BIG-IP GUI. -- Using the 'tmsh run util ihealth' command to do the equivalent operation.

Workaround

Generating Qkviews by invoking the 'qkview' command directly avoids this issue. Edit the /usr/bin/ihealth.sh script to remove the corresponding line. From a bash shell: 1. mount -o remount,rw /usr 2. /bin/cp /usr/bin/ihealth.sh{,751009.bak} 3. sed -i '/\/bin\/rm -f \/var\/tmp\/mcpd.out/d' /usr/bin/ihealth.sh 4. mount -o remount,ro /usr Note: This workaround does not persist across software installs/upgrades, nor does it ConfigSync or replicate across blades in a VIPRION chassis.

Fix Information

The problem line has been removed from the script, so this mcpd debug file is left alone (not deleted) after running ihealth.sh. Note that the GUI version of running qkview uses ihealth.sh script.

Behavior Change

Guides & references

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