Knowledge Base : Get real shell on ZS appliance

17 November 1, 2021

How to obtain a real OS shell on an Oracle ZFS Appliance (ZSA)

From inside the ZSA cli (reachable via ssh with username/password (same as in the web GUI) or ssh key):

QDC3L7006-CT1-MGMT:> shell
 Executing shell commands may invalidate your service contract. Continue? (Y/N)
 Executing raw shell; "exit" to return to appliance shell ...
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
You are entering the operating system shell. By confirming this action in
 
the appliance shell you have agreed that THIS ACTION MAY VOID ANY SUPPORT
 
AGREEMENT. If you do not agree to this – or do not otherwise understand
 
what you are doing – you should type "exit" at the shell prompt. EVERY
 
COMMAND THAT YOU EXECUTE HERE IS AUDITED, and support personnel may use
 
this audit trail to substantiate invalidating your support contract. The
 
operating system shell is NOT a supported mechanism for managing this
 
appliance, and COMMANDS EXECUTED HERE MAY DO IRREPARABLE HARM.
 
 
 
NOTHING SHOULD BE ATTEMPTED HERE BY UNTRAINED SUPPORT PERSONNEL UNDER ANY
 
CIRCUMSTANCES. This appliance is a non-traditional operating system
 
environment, and expertise in a traditional operating system environment
 
in NO WAY constitutes training for supporting this appliance. THOSE WITH
 
EXPERTISE IN OTHER SYSTEMS – HOWEVER SUPERFICIALLY SIMILAR – ARE MORE
 
LIKELY TO MISTAKENLY EXECUTE OPERATIONS HERE THAT WILL DO IRREPARABLE
 
HARM. Unless you have been explicitly trained on supporting this
 
appliance via the operating system shell, you should immediately return
 
to the appliance shell.
 
 
 
Type "exit" now to return to the appliance shell.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 QDC3L7006-CT1-MGMT# w
 3:05pm up 149 day(s), 1:47, 1 user, load average: 1.51, 1.46, 1.47
 User tty login@ idle JCPU PCPU what
 root pts/1 12:04pm w
 QDC3L7006-CT1-MGMT#

Support bundles are located in

/var/ak/bundles/

by the way.

This might be helpful if you have to manually download a support bundle to upload it to Oracle Support by hand, which has to be done if the Phone Home function is not set up and Internet access from the appliance is prohibited by firewall rule (a.k.a always in Europe (wink)).