15. sos Report Available Plugins.

sos report plugins are modular components of the sos report tool that allow it to collect specific sets of data or logs from various software, services, and subsystems in a Linux box. Each plugin is designed to collect information related to a particular application, service, subsystem or product, making it easier to analyze the root causes of issues related to that component.

A complete description with examples on how to enable or disable sos plugins or how to use profiles can be found in this article

Key Features:

1. Custom Data Collection: Plugins are created to gather data from various sources such as system logs, configurations, performance metrics, hardware details, and application-specific information.
2. Modular Design: Each plugin is designed to target a specific component of the system (e.g., network, storage, database, etc.), which makes the process of generating a report more efficient.
3. Extensibility: The  sos tool can be extended with custom plugins, enabling it to support additional software or systems not included by default.
4. Data Consistency: Plugins ensure that the data collected for different system components is consistent, improving the analysis process when combined with other system data.

How Plugins Work:

Plugins are typically implemented as Python scripts or modules that are executed during the sos report generation process. These plugins can:

• Parse configuration files.
• Collect log files.
• Gather statistics about running processes or system resources.
• Create dumps of specific application data.
• Collect data in predefined formats to ensure consistency.

You can even create your own plugins. Creating a custom sos report plugin requires knowledge of Python and familiarity with the sos framework. For more technical details, refer to the official Sos Report Plugin Wiki.

The sos report command includes a plugin called sos_extras designed to collect additional custom or user-specified information during the generation of a sosreport. To learn how to include your own command outputs, logs or configuration files a detail description can be found in this article

The exact number of plugins in the sos report tool can vary depending on the version and the specific distribution of Linux being used (e.g., CentOS, RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.). However, there are typically around 100 default plugins included in a standard sos report package. To find out what plugins your current version of sos report supports you can type the following command:

$ sudo sos report --list-plugins 

Available Plugins

The following table provides a comprehensive catalog of all plugins and profiles available in sos up to the version indicated. It supports advanced search and filtering capabilities, allowing you to quickly locate plugins by name, associated commands, collected log files, or configuration files. You can also filter and explore entries by profile name to identify the exact data collection scope relevant to your environment.