Exchanging information with IBM

To diagnose or identify a problem, you might need to provide IBM® Support with data and information from your system. In other cases, IBM Support might provide you with tools or utilities to use for problem determination.

Sending information to IBM Support

To reduce the time that is required to resolve your problem, you can send trace and diagnostic information to IBM Support.

To submit diagnostic information to IBM Support:

Open a problem management record (PMR) on this site: Service requests and PMRs.
Collect the diagnostic data that you need. Diagnostic data helps reduce the time that it takes to resolve your PMR. You can collect the diagnostic data manually or automatically. Follow the instructions in this article to collect data: Collecting Data: Read first for Informix Family products
Compress the files by using the .zip or .tar file format.
Transfer the files to IBM. You can use one of the following methods to transfer the files to IBM:
Each of these methods are described in this article: Submitting diagnostic information to IBM Technical Support for problem determination.

Receiving information from IBM Support

Occasionally an IBM technical-support representative might ask you to download diagnostic tools or other files. You can use FTP to download these files.

Ensure that your IBM technical-support representative provided you with the preferred server to use for downloading the files and the exact directory and file names to access.

To download files from IBM Support:

Use FTP to connect to the site that your IBM technical-support representative provided and log in as anonymous. Use your email address as the password.
Change to the appropriate directory:
1. Change to the /fromibm directory.
```
cd fromibm
```
2. Change to the directory that your IBM technical-support representative provided.
```
cd nameofdirectory
```
Enable binary mode for your session.
```
binary
```
Use the get command to download the file that your IBM technical-support representative specified.
```
get filename.extension
```
End your FTP session.
```
quit
```