Diagnosing issues on agents

The diagnostic tool can be started from the agent interface on the users' workstations.

It allows you to collect varied data about the workstation on which an issue occurred and for the data to be gathered in a diagnostic package (.zip) to be provided to Stormshield Technical Support for analysis.

In addition to the diagnostic data, you can request tracing to record the series of operations the user performed that led to the unexpected behavior on SES Evolution.

Tracing collects debugging traces from each module of the agent.

You can start only one data collection at a time per workstation.

To use the diagnostic tool on a user workstation, ask the user to perform the following operations:

  1. Double-click on the icon in the task bar to open the agent's interface.
  2. Click on the tab to open the Help and support panel.
  3. Click on the Diagnosis tab.
  4. By default, you must use the challenge mechanism to allow the user to run the diagnostic tool. Ask the user to generate a challenge code in the Helpdesk tab in the Help and support panel. For further information on challenges, refer to the section Resolving issues with challenges. The Challenges feature must be enabled in the Settings tab of agent groups:
    The contents of the Diagnosis tab may vary depending on the settings of the agent group and whether the user is an administrator. To find out more, refer to the information at the end of this procedure.

    NOTE
    Administration privileges are not required to start a diagnostic via a challenge.

  5. If you have allowed tracing in the challenge, ask the user to start by clicking Start tracing.
  6. Ask the user to reproduce the scenario that caused the abnormal behavior and then click Next.
  7. The user must then specify the destination folder and the name of the diagnostic package. The user can enter a description if necessary.
  8. The user clicks on Next. The tool collects data about the SES Evolution agent and the workstation's system. During data collection or compression, if the user cancels, closes the diagnostic tool or logs out of Windows, any data already collected will be deleted.
  9. At the end of the collection, the user can check Open file location when closing the tool and close.
  10. Ask the user to provide the generated .zip diagnostic package for Stormshield Technical Support to analyze.

For users who have administration privileges on their workstations, the Allow collection of diagnostic data option in the agent group Settings tab allows them to start a diagnostic directly from the agent, without going through a challenge. For more information, see the section Collecting diagnostic data.

When the challenge feature is disabled in the agent group Settings tab and data collection is allowed in agent groups as well, non-admin users of their workstation can request privilege escalation to start a diagnostic from the agent.

You can also establish a diagnosis on a user’s workstation via a script, by launching EsGui ([...]\\Stormshield\SES Evolution\Agent\Bin\Gui) with the following command line options. Administration privileges are required and the Collecting diagnostic data option must be enabled in the agent group.

EsGui /GenerateDiagnostic <path.zip> /AcknowledgePersonalDataCollection /DiagnosticComment <comment> Generates a diagnostic package without tracing. Specify the destination folder of the package. The /AcknowledgePersonalDataCollection parameter is mandatory to allow the collection of personal data. The /DiagnosticComment parameter is optional, and makes it possible to add comments.
EsGui /StartDiagnosticWithTraces /AcknowledgePersonalDataCollection Starts diagnosing and tracing.
EsGui /StopDiagnosticWithTraces <path.zip> /DiagnosticComment <comment> Stops tracing and finishes generating the diagnostic package. Specify the location to save the package.
EsGui /CancelDiagnostic Cancels the diagnostic in progress.

For more information on EsGui, refer to the section Using the EsGui command.