At times data can not be gathered using WLC SSH or telnet sessions, as some commands can only be run on WLC serial console outputs, over long periods of time.
Teraterm's scripting capabilities and time stamped based logging are very useful in those scenarios. Tera term is free & can be downloaded from here:-
http://en.sourceforge.jp/projects/ttssh2/releases/
1. With TAC you would use .ttl scripts, to get automated outputs with macro feature.
To run macro, Teraterm menubar>control>macro. This will open a dialog box, where you can choose a .ttl file to run. You can stop the script/macro on the fly, in the new macro dialog box, that stays open on the side, while you are running the script.
http://ttssh2.sourceforge.jp/manual/en/macro/howtorun.html
2. At times, the script has show commands, which do not have a timestamp in them & without the time of when the output is taken, it becomes very difficult to make an analysis. Use the following feature in teraterm, to append a timestamp, to each line in the logs, using the PC's (where teraterm is installed) time.
Teraterm menubar>file>log. Point to the location, where you want to save the log file. Check timestamp option under options, to append, local PC's time on each log.
3. The PC on which teraterm is running should be NTP timesynced, preferably to the same NTP server to which WLC is timesynced. WLC's NTP server is on controller tab>NTP. Make sure it is performing timesync correctly. What i normally do is remove and readd it, while running a "debug ntp detail enable" on WLC CLI. That shows if the NTP timesync correction happened correctly. If you don't want to remove and readd the NTP server, then wait for the time interval configured on the NTP server, to check if the NTP timesync got in correctly. NTP time syncing on windows machine can be done very easily, using this nifty free software:-
http://www.timesynctool.com/
4. At times, these scripts might have to run for days & based on how huge the log file becomes, you might want rotate after collecting a certain amount of data. Use the "log rotate" option under setup>additional settings>log, to do the above, only if needed.
Secure CRT also accomplishes the same but it is not free. Although a 30 day evaluation is present for it.
