Use a USB Drive to Save a Support Snapshot
The USB drive you use must be formatted with the FAT or FAT32 file system. If the USB drive has more than one partition, Fireware only uses the first partition. The support snapshot file is encrypted for security. WatchGuard support can decrypt it for analysis.
This feature is not supported on FireboxV and XTMv devices.
If you connect a USB drive to a USB interface on the Firebox, the device automatically generates a new support snapshot and saves the snapshot to the USB drive as an encrypted file. This happens automatically when the device is powered on and a USB drive is connected to the device. Any time you connect a USB drive, the Firebox automatically saves a current support snapshot in the \wgdiag directory on the USB drive.
When the Firebox detects a connected USB drive, it automatically completes these actions:
- If the \wgdiag directory does not exist on the USB drive, the Firebox creates it.
- If the \wgdiag directory already exists on the USB drive, the Firebox deletes and recreates it.
- The Firebox saves the new support snapshot in the \wgdiag directory with the file name support1.tgz.
Each time you connect the USB drive or restart the Firebox, any files in the \wgdiag directory are removed and a new support snapshot is saved.
If you want to keep a support snapshot, you can either rename the \wgdiag directory on the USB drive or copy the support1.tgz file from the USB drive to your computer before you reconnect the USB drive to the Firebox.
Status messages about USB diagnostics file generation appear as Info level messages in the log file. These log messages contain the text USB Diagnostic. For Firebox or XTM devices that have an LCD display, messages also appear on the LCD while the USB diagnostic file is written, and when a USB drive is connected or removed.
By default, the Firebox saves only a single support snapshot per USB drive when the USB drive is first detected. You can use the usb diagnostic command in the Command Line Interface to enable the device to automatically save multiple support snapshots to the USB drive periodically while the device is in operation. If the device is configured to save multiple support snapshots, the number at the end of the file name is incrementally increased each time a new snapshot is saved, so that you can see a sequence of support snapshots. For example, the file names for the first two support snapshots would be support1.tgz and support2.tgz. If enabled, the USB diagnostics stores a maximum of 48 support snapshots on the USB drive. When the number of stored snapshots reaches 48, the Firebox automatically removes the oldest snapshot file when it saves a new support snapshot.
For more information about how to use the usb diagnostic command, see the Fireware Command Line Interface Reference.