FAQ - How to attach large files to a Support ticket

Overview

This article provides instructions on how to attach large files to Support tickets.

Background

With SendSafely integrated in the DataStax Support portal, the 20MB attachment limit for Zendesk tickets no longer applies. Attachments are effectively limitless with the possibility of attaching files up to 10GB each.

There are situations where it is necessary to attach a single file larger than 10GB, for example a JVM heap dump (*.hprof). Follow the steps in this article to get around this situation.

Applies to

The procedure below is only necessary for attachments with individual files larger than 10GB. It is not required for attachments which have smaller individual files even if the total size of attachments exceeds 10GB.

Procedure

Follow these steps for splitting a large file into smaller chunks using the Linux split utility.

Step 1 - Divide the file into multiple 10GB chunks. The format of the command with the recommended parameters is as follows:

$ split -a 1 -b 10G <input_file> <output_prefix>

For a sample file cassandra.hprof, the command is:

$ split -a 1 -b 10G cassandra.hprof cassandra.hprof.

In this example, the resulting files are:

$ ls -lh
-rw-rw-r-- 1 cassandra cassandra 10.0G Sep 27 13:40 cassandra.hprof.a
-rw-rw-r-- 1 cassandra cassandra 10.0G Sep 27 13:40 cassandra.hprof.b
-rw-rw-r-- 1 cassandra cassandra  3.2G Sep 27 13:40 cassandra.hprof.c

Step 2 - Compress the files to facilitate faster retrieval. For example:

$ gzip -v cassandra.hprof.*

Step 3 - Retrieve the compressed files from the node as appropriate and attach to the Support ticket with a note indicating that the original file has been split so the Support engineer is aware that the files need to be concatenated back into its original form. For example:

$ cat cassandra.hprof.* >> cassandra.hprof