The document discusses the importance of the "show tech" command based on presentations given at JANOG conferences in 2008 and 2017. It summarizes that show tech provides valuable troubleshooting information but was initially seen as mandatory, lengthy to run, and potentially causing side effects. Over time, systems have improved to make show tech faster, less resource intensive, and more selective through subset options and automation. The document emphasizes the importance of communication between operators and manufacturers to continuously improve show tech functionality and troubleshooting processes.

1. Copyright © Arista 2017. All rights reserved.Copyright © Arista 2017. All rights reserved.1
What is “show tech”?
-JANOG Case Study-
Shishio Tsuchiya
shtsuchi@arista.com

2. Copyright © Arista 2017. All rights reserved.
Who am I?
• Shishio Tsuchiya
- 1997-2000 Ricoh Techno Systems
- 2000-2016 Cisco Systems
- 2017- Arista Networks
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3. Copyright © Arista 2017. All rights reserved.
What is show tech?
• show tech is “show technical-support” which set
of maintenance command to investigate couse
of the trouble
- show version
- show ip route
- show running-configuration
- etc
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4. Copyright © Arista 2017. All rights reserved.
Back to 2008 / JANOG22
• MEX Mitsugi-san did presentation “What is show-tech?”
• understand it is important but why it is mandatory
• have to collect ”show tech” every cases?
- reason already shows in the log message
- Physical Failure(fan noise / sfp later failure by dust )
- already recovered from critical failure( side effect?)
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manufacture System Integrator Operators

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Back to 2008 / JANOG22
• take survey to venders
- show tech mandatory or not?
- Is there side effect by show tech?
- Reason of displays to terminal
- etc
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Back to 2008 / JANOG22
• show tech mandatory or not?
- not mandatory but desirable
- because it can get same quality information
• Is there side effect by show tech?
- Priority of the process is low
- but it access to memory/cpu so side effect would be possible…
• Reason of displays to terminal
- disk space
- several sub-set option to minimize : show tech xxx
- can redirect to hdd/url
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Wish list about “show tech” from operators
• hidden security information[login / snmp community
name/BGP MD5 /interface description]
• Execute time should be shorten
• Impact of CPU should be minimize
- don’t need display monitor
- need several subset option
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8. Copyright © Arista 2017. All rights reserved.
She backs JANOG40/2017
Don’t be afraid of “show tech”
• She takes survey again to operators and
manufacture
1. What kind of information send to SIer/Manufacture to
request failure analys
2. Any considering point when send “show tech”?
3. Any concern when get “show tech”?
4. Any technic when get “show tech”?
5. Is there any forbidden command
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9. Copyright © Arista 2017. All rights reserved.
She backs JANOG40/2017
Don’t be afraid of “show tech”
1. Improvement architecture point to reduce load
of CPU/memory to get show tech
2. Improvement point to get logging
3. Technic for analysis of the failure
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Implementation example
• Process does not have state , so NO side affect by CLI
• There is command scheduler to execute CLI by regularly
- show tech execute by hour and save the zipped result data to the flash by default
• Even based script
• Important information like a route remove/add can save/refer as SQLite Data base.
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SysDB
BGP
OSPF
SNMP
CLI
script

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Lesson from JANOG22 and JANOG40
• The architecture is improving
• should reconsider forbidden command because
it depends on the architecture
• Intercommunication between operators and
manufacture must be important.
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