Which command would generate a Collector File?

Kemal J.Jun 27, 2026

show techsupport is your answer. That command bundles system logs, config snapshots, counters, and ns.log into a compressed Collector File that Citrix support can actually use, whereas nstrace and nstcpdump only capture packet-level traffic and cat aaad.debug just dumps a single auth log to screen.

Grace U.Jun 14, 2026

I remember staring at that one and almost second-guessing myself because "show techsupport" sounds like it just displays status info, but then I thought about what a support engineer actually needs to collect, and it clicked that "show techsupport" is exactly the command that bundles everything into that collector file. Once I connected the word "support" to the idea of gathering data for a case, D was the only one that made sense.

Thekla S.Jun 8, 2026

The trick here is that "start nstrace" sounds authoritative because it does generate files, just packet capture files, not a Collector File. A lot of people see "trace" and assume diagnostic bundle, but those are two different artifacts with different purposes. The Collector File is that compressed archive of logs, configs, and system state that Citrix support asks for when you open a case, and "show techsupport" is what builds it on the ADC. "cat aaad.debug" is just reading an authentication debug log directly, no file generation involved, so that one should drop off your list fast. D is the only command that packages the environment into a portable bundle you can actually send somewhere, which is the whole point of a Collector File.

Orla P.Jun 25, 2026

start nstrace is the one, it kicks off the Collector File capture directly.