Lenovo System x / ThinkServer Internal Log Collection (DSA and OneCLI)

When the IMM2 management port is unavailable, Lenovo / IBM System x servers can use DSA (Dynamic System Analysis) to collect diagnostic reports: press F2 at startup to run the built-in DSA Preboot (requires reboot), or run DSA Portable within the operating system (no reboot required). ThinkServer and ThinkSystem servers use XClarity Essentials OneCLI for in-system collection. When you can log in to the management port, prioritize following the "Lenovo x Series — FFDC Log Collection Guide" to download service data from IMM2.

DSA is a legacy workflow. Lenovo states that DSA Parser reached end of life and became unavailable in February 2025, and recommends LXCE OneCLI. Retain DSA procedures for systems where a compatible tool is already available; use OneCLI on supported platforms for new collections.

Method 1: Press F2 at startup to run DSA Preboot (requires reboot)

Prepare a FAT32-formatted USB drive and insert it into the server's USB port.

  1. Start the server; when the System x logo appears, press F2 to enter DSA.

    Press F2 during the boot screen

  2. First, enter the Memory Test interface. If memory testing is not needed, select "Quit to DSA" from the Quit menu to jump to DSA; if memory stress testing is required, choose Quick Memory Test or Full Memory Test.

    Select Quit to DSA on the Memory Test interface

  3. When the EFI boot screen appears, select "ToolCenter Kernel EFI-BOOT" and press Enter.

    Select ToolCenter Kernel EFI-BOOT

  4. After approximately 1 minute, the command selection appears. Enter gui to enter the graphical interface (enter cmd to enter the command-line interface).

    Enter gui to access the graphical interface

  5. After approximately 2 minutes, the DSA graphical interface appears. Click "I Accept" to accept the license agreement, then DSA initializes for about 3 minutes.

    Accept the license agreement DSA initialization

  6. Click "Full Inventory Collection and Diagnosis".

    Full Inventory Collection and Diagnosis

  7. In the confirmation dialog: Step 1, check "Collect System Inventory" (system hardware report) and "Run Diagnosis Tests" (diagnostic tests; Quick test takes tens of minutes, Full test simultaneously stresses CPU and memory and may take several hours); Step 2, select "Save to removable media" to save to the USB drive, then click "Run Now".

    Select collection content and save to USB drive
  8. After completion, confirm the save method again, remove the USB drive, reboot the server, and send the DSA diagnostic report archive from the USB drive to technical support.

Method 2: Run DSA Portable within the operating system (no reboot required)

The original guide references the historical DSA landing page. Use an existing compatible DSA package for the legacy examples below; Lenovo now recommends OneCLI. The historical Windows example is lnvgy_utl_dsa_dsala7k-10.5_portable_windows_x86-64.exe.

Windows

  1. Upload .exe to any directory on the server (English paths are recommended), then double-click to run as an administrator.
  2. When prompted "You might need to download an update for DSA… Do you want to proceed anyway? (Y/N)", enter Y; when prompted "Press Enter to continue", press Enter.
  3. Collection results are saved in C:\IBM_Support (newer versions use C:\Lenovo_Support) with the suffix .xml.gz. Send this file to technical support.

Linux

# After uploading to /tmp, make the binary executable and run it; collection can take time
chmod +x /tmp/lnvgy_utl_dsa_dsala5z_10.2_portable_rhel6_x86-64.bin
cd /tmp
./lnvgy_utl_dsa_dsala5z_10.2_portable_rhel6_x86-64.bin

After collection, read the output path printed by DSA and retrieve the .xml.gz file from /var/log/IBM_Support or /var/log/Lenovo_Support. The USB example below is for a server without network file transfer. Identify the correct USB partition before mounting it.

fdisk -l                          # Identify the actual USB partition; /dev/sdb4 is only an example
mkdir /tmp/usb
mount -t vfat /dev/sdb4 /tmp/usb
mkdir /tmp/dsa
cp /tmp/usb/lnvgy_utl_dsa_*.bin /tmp/dsa/
cd /tmp/dsa && chmod +x lnvgy_utl_dsa_*.bin && ./lnvgy_utl_dsa_*.bin
cp /var/log/Lenovo_Support/*.xml.gz /tmp/usb/
umount /tmp/usb

VMware ESXi (remote collection)

DSA cannot run directly on ESXi. Instead, run the Windows version of DSA for remote collection on a Windows computer that can access ESXi:

lnvgy_utl_dsa_xxx_portable_windows_x86-64.exe --vmware-esxi root:Password@192.168.0.100
# Source quoting example for a password containing special characters:--vmware-esxi root:'Password!'@192.168.0.100

Results are also saved on the Windows computer in C:\IBM_Support or C:\Lenovo_Support directory.

Method 3: ThinkServer / ThinkSystem uses OneCLI

OneCLI download address:datacentersupport.lenovo.com/solutions/lnvo-tcli Extract to an English path and execute as administrator / root:

# Windows: in-system collection; output to C:\onecli_log
OneCli.exe inventory getinfor --ffdc --htmlreport --output C:\onecli_log

# Remote BMC collection from a management computer
OneCli.exe inventory getinfor --ffdc --htmlreport --bmc USERID:Password@<BMC IP> --output C:\onecli_log

# Linux
tar zxvf onecli-*.tgz -C /tmp/onecli
cd /tmp/onecli
./OneCli inventory getinfor --ffdc --htmlreport --output /tmp/onecli_log

Collection takes 15–45 minutes. After completion, package the entire output directory and send it to technical support.

Replace password and BMC/ESXi address placeholders with the target system’s values. Shell quoting depends on the operating system and shell. The Linux OneCLI example assumes /tmp/onecli already exists; create that output directory before extracting the package.

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