Debug mode

We understand that successfully deploying your policies and settings correctly is important. To help you test and deploy your configurations, Knox Service Plugin includes a setting called Debug mode.

Overview

By default, Knox Service Plugin runs in the background and does not have a UI. Debug mode enables you to easily see policy results and errors on a device, so you can verify that your configurations are correct. When turned on, it launches an app that displays the status of policies. This app auto-launches when it receives any new polices.

Here’s what debug mode looks like when opened manually on a device:

The app provides the latest configuration results, including:

• Policy title — Name of the policy.
• Message — Description of the policy, along with the status of the policy application.

Activate Debug mode

Debug mode is activated inside your UEM console, in the Knox Service Plugin managed configuration. The location and appearance of the Debug mode feature in your UEM console may vary depending upon your UEM UI. Here is an example of how it may look:

Once you activate debug mode within your UEM, the next time policy changes are pushed to a device, the Knox Service Plugin app opens on the device. For example, if you are trying to debug the Enable fingerprint authentication feature, follow these steps in your UEM:

1. Turn on the Debug mode flag.

2. Expand Device-wide policies, and set Enable device policy controls to True.

3. Under Password Policy > Biometric authentication, configure the Enable fingerprint authentication policy.

4. Push the policies to a device.

5. Check the Knox Service Plugin app for debug information. If, for any reason, the app does not launch:

   • Confirm that the device is using the latest Google Play services and Play client application.

   • Confirm that the UEM has pushed the appropriate policies to the device. Some UEMs have a delay between the time a policy is saved on the console and when it is received by the device. You may have to open the UEM agent on the device and perform a manual refresh to receive the policy. Refer to your UEM’s instructions for more information.

Debug mode features

You can perform the following actions when Debug mode is activated:

• To apply any updated policies, tap Apply Latest Policies.

  If the policy updates aren’t applied when you tap Apply Latest Policies, try again in a few minutes. It can take a short time for updated policies to be pushed from your UEM to devices.

• When you first open the app, it only shows the most recently pushed configuration. You can tap it to see the configuration results, which is a summary of the currently applied configuration.

  

• You can tap Configuration results and then tap Policies received to see details about each applied policy in JSON format.

  Successful policies are displayed in black text. Failed policies are displayed in red text.

  

• You can export configuration information by tapping , then choose what information to export.

  • Export results — Export the latest configuration results in JSON format to the device.
  • Export policies received — Export the latest policies received in JSON format to the device.
  • Export historical events — Export a log of previous policies received and other events such as license activations to the device.

  

  You can remotely retrieve the current Knox Service Plugin policies and status on the device with Knox Asset Intelligence. This allows you to troubleshoot Knox Service Plugin without physical access to the device.

  You can also do this with the Knox Asset Intelligence API. See how you can get started with our Knox cloud services APIs.

Contact Support and provide debug files

In some cases, you may want to contact Support for help with a Knox Service Plugin issue. If you do, you need to provide the following files for investigation:

• ConfigurationResults_<timestamp>.txt
• ReceivedPolicies_<timestamp>.txt
• dumpstate log file

To obtain these files for upload:

1. After enabling debug mode as described in the previous sections, open the Knox Service Plugin app.

2. Tap the latest configuration.

3. Tap > Export results.

4. Tap Save to save the Knox Service Plugin configuration results file to your Internal storage > Download folder.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4, this time tapping Export policies received, to export and save the Knox Service Plugin received policies file.

6. See Dumpstate logs (phone) for instructions on saving your device’s dumpstate log file. Skip steps 2–5 in that procedure.

   Save the dumpstate log file soon after your issue occurs. If too much time passes, the relevant activity might no longer be contained in the log file.

7. Upload these three files to your support ticket.