autosupport

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July 7th, 2009

Data ONTAP is capable of sending automated notification to Customer Support at Network Appliance and/or to other designated addressees in certain situations. The notification contains useful information to help them solve or recognize problems quickly and proactively. The system can also be configured to send a short alert notification containing only the reason for the alert to a separate list of recipients. This notification is sent only for critical events that might require some corrective action and can be useful for Administrators with alphanumeric pagers that can accept short email messages.

DESCRIPTION

The autosupport mechanism will use SMTP if there are any (user configured) destination email addresses set in the autosupport.to option. If autosupport.support.enable is on then autosupports will also be sent to Network Appliance. Autosupports sent to Network Appliance may be transmitted by SMTP or by HTTP as specified in the autosupport.support.transport option.

If SMTP is used then the autosupport mechanism contacts a mail host that is listening on the SMTP port (25) to send email. A list of up to 5 mailhosts can be specified by using the autosupport.mailhosts option, and they will be accessed in the order specified until one of them answers as a mailhost. It will then send email through the successful mailhost connection to the destination email address specified in the autosupport.to option. Note that the autosupport.to option only allows 5 email address. To send to more than 5 recipients, create a local alias, or distribution list, and add that as the recipient.

If autosupport.support.enable is on then a copy of the autosupport message is also sent to Network Appliance as follows:

If autosupport.support.transport is smtp then the copy of the autosupport is emailed to the destination specified in autosupport.support.to and the same mailhost picking algorithm is used as above.

If autosupport.support.transport is http then a direct connection to the location specified in autosupport.support.url is made and the autosupport is transmitted to Network Appliance via HTTP POST.

The autosupport mechanism is triggered automatically once a week by the kernel to send information before backing up the messages file. It can also be invoked to send the information through the options command. Autosupport mail will also be sent on events that require corrective action from the System Administrator. And finally, the autosupport mechanism will send notification upon system reboot from disk.

To accommodate multiple delivery methods and destinations and to preserve time dependent values, the outgoing autosupport messages are now spooled in /etc/log/autosupport. Autosupport processing will attempt to deliver all (currently undelivered) messages until the autosupport.retry.count has been reached or until subsequent autosupport messages "fill the spool" such that the oldest (undelivered) messages are forced to be dropped. The spool size is currently 40 messages.

The subject line of the mail sent by the autosupport mechanism contains a text string to identify the reason for the notification. The subject also contains a relative prioritization of the message, using syslog severity levels from DEBUG to EMERGENCY (see syslog.conf ). The messages and other information in the notification should be used to check on the problem being reported.

The setup command tries to configure autosupport as follows:

If a mailhost is specified, it adds an entry for mailhost to the /etc/hosts file.

Setup also queries for autosupport.from information.

OPTIONS

Autosupport features are manipulated through the options command (see options ). The available options are as follows:

autosupport.cifs.verbose
If on, includes CIFS session and share information in autosupport messages. If off, those sections are omitted. The default is off.

autosupport.content
The type of content that the autosupport notification should contain. Allowable values are complete and minimal. The default value is complete. The minimal option allows the delivery of a "sanitized" and smaller version of the autosupport, at the cost of reduced support from Network Appliance. Please contact Network Appliance if you feel you need to use the minimal option. The complete option is the traditional (and default) form of autosupport. If this option is changed from complete to minimal then all previous and pending autosupport messages will be deleted under the assumption that complete messages should not be transmitted.

autosupport.doit
Triggers the autosupport daemon to send an autosupport notification immediately. A text word entered as the option is sent in the notification subject line and should be used to explain the reason for the notification.

autosupport.enable
Enables/disables the autosupport notification features (see autosupport ). The default is on to cause autosupport notifications to be sent. This option will override the autosupport.support.enable option.

autosupport.from
Defines the user to be designated as the sender of the notification. The default is postmaster@your.domain. Email replies from Network Appliance will be sent to this address.

autosupport.local.nht_data.enable
Enables/disables the NHT data autosupport to be sent to the recipients listed in the autosupport.to option. NHT data is the binary, internal log data from each disk drive, and in general, is not parsable by other than Network Appliance. There is no customer data in the NHT autosupport. The default for this option is off.

autosupport.local.performance_data.enable
Enables/disables performance data autosupport to be sent to the recipients listed in autosupport.to. The performance autosupport contains hourly samples of system performance counters, and in general is only useful to Network Appliance. The default is off.

autosupport.mailhost
Defines the list of up to 5 mailhost names. Enter the host names as a comma-separated list with no spaces in between. The default is an empty list.

autosupport.minimal.subject.id
Defines the type of string that is used in the identification portion of the subject line when autosupport.content is set to minimal. Allowable values are systemid and hostname. The default is systemid.

autosupport.noteto
Defines the list of recipients for the autosupport short note email. Up to 5 mail addresses are allowed. Enter the addresses as a comma-separated list with no spaces in between. The default is an empty list to disable short note emails.

autosupport.nht_data.enable
Enables/disables the generation of the Health Trigger (NHT) data autosupport. Default is off

autosupport.performance_data.enable
Enables/disables hourly sampling of system performance data, and weekly creation of a performance data autosupport. The default is on.

autosupport.retry.count
Number of times to try resending the mail before giving up and dropping the mail. Minimum is 5; maximum is 4294967295 ; The default is 15 .

autosupport.retry.interval
Time in minutes to delay before trying to send the autosupport again. Minimum is 30 seconds, maximum is 1 day. Values may end with `s’, `m’ or `h’ to indicate seconds, minutes or hours respectively, if no units are specified than input is
assumed to be in seconds. The default value is 4m.

autosupport.support.enable
Enables/disables the autosupport notification to Network Appliance The default is on to cause autosupport notifications to be sent directly to Network Appliance as described by the autosupport.support.transport option. This option is superceded (overridden) by the value of autosupport.enable.

autosupport.support.proxy
Allows the setting of an http based proxy if autosupport.support.transport is https or http. The default
for this option is the empty string, implying no proxy is necessary.

autosupport.support.to
This option is read only; it shows where autosupport notifications to Network Appliance are sent if autosupport.support.transport is smtp.

autosupport.support.transport
Allows setting the type of delivery desired for autosupport notifications that are destined for Network Appliance. Allowed values are https, http (for direct web based posting) or smtp (for traditional email). The default value is https. Note that http and https may (depending on local network configuration) require that the autosupport.support.proxy option be set correctly. Also smtp requires that autosupport.mailhosts be configured correctly before autosupport delivery can be successful.

autosupport.support.url
This option is read only; it shows where autosupport notifications to Network Appliance are sent if autosupport.support.transport is https or http.

autosupport.throttle
Enables autosupport throttling (see autosupport ). When too many autosupports are sent in too short a time, additional messages of the same type will be dropped. Valid values for this option are on or off. The default value for this option is on.

autosupport.to
Defines the list of recipients for the autosupport email notification. Up to 5 mail addresses are allowed. Enter the addresses as a comma-separated list with no spaces in between. The default is an empty list. Note that it is no longer necessary to use the standard Network Appliance autosupport email address in this field to direct autosupport messages to Network Appliance. Please use autosupport.support.enable instead.

A complete autosupport will contain the following information. Note that some sections are configurable, and/or available depending on what features are licensed. The order given is the general order of appearance in the autosupport message itself.

Generation date and timestamp

Software Version

System ID

Hostname

SNMP contact name (if specified)

SNMP location (if specified)

Partner System ID (if clustered)

Partner Hostname (if clustered)

Cluster Node Status (if clustered)

Console language type

sysconfig -a output

sysconfig -c output

sysconfig -d output

System Serial Number

Software Licenses (scrambled prior to transmission)

Option settings

availtime output

cf monitor all output (if clustered)

ic stats performance output (if clustered with VIA)

ic stats error -v output (if clustered with VIA)

snet stats -v output (if clustered with SNET)

ifconfig -a output

ifstat -a output

vlan stat output

vif status output

nis info output

nfsstat -c output (if licensed)

cifs stat output (if licensed)

cifs sessions summary (if licensed)

cifs sessions output (if licensed and enabled)

cifs shares summary (if licensed)

cifs shares output (if licensed and enabled)

vol status -l (if cifs is licensed)

httpstat output

vfiler status -a output (if licensed)

df output

df -i output

snap sched output

vol status -v output

vol status output

vol status -c output

vol scrub status -v output

sysconfig -r output

fcstat fcal_stats output

fcstat device_map output

fcstat link_stats output

ECC Memory Scrubber Statistics

ems event status output

ems log status output

registry values

perf report -t output

storage show adapter -a output

storage show hub -a output

storage show disk -a output

storage show fabric output

storage show switch output

storage show port output

EMS log file (if enabled)

/etc/messages content

Parity Inconsistancy information

WAFL_check logs

TYPES

The following types of autosupport messages, with their associated severity, can be generated automatically. The autosupport message text is in bold, and the LOG_XXX value is the syslog severity level. Note that text inside of square brackets ([]) is descriptive and is not static for any given autosupport message of that type.

BATTERY_LOW!!!
LOG_ALERT

BMC_EVENT: BUS ERROR
LOG_ERR

BMC_EVENT: POST ERROR
LOG_ERR

CLUSTER DOWNREV BOOT FIRMWARE: LOG_CRIT

CLUSTER ERROR: DISK/SHELF COUNT MISMATCH LOG_EMERG

CLUSTER GIVEBACK COMPLETE: LOG_INFO

CLUSTER TAKEOVER COMPLETE AUTOMATIC: LOG_ALERT

CLUSTER TAKEOVER COMPLETE MANUAL: LOG_INFO

CLUSTER TAKEOVER FAILED: LOG_INFO

CONFIGURATION_ERROR!!!
LOG_ALERT

CPU FAN WARNING - [fan]
LOG_WARNING

DEVICE_QUALIFICATION_FAILED: LOG_CRIT

DISK CONFIGURATION ERROR: LOG_ALERT

DISK RECONSTRUCTION FAILED!!
LOG_ALERT

DISK_FAIL!!! - Bypassed by ESH
LOG_ALERT

DISK_FAIL!!!
LOG_ALERT

DISK_FAILURE_PREDICTED!!!
LOG_ALERT

DISK_FIRMWARE_NEEDED_UPDATE!!!
LOG_EMERG

DISK_IO_DEGRADED: LOG_WARNING

DISK_LOW_THRUPUT: LOG_NOTICE

DISK_RECOVERED_ERRORS: LOG_WARNING

DISK_SCRUB!!!
LOG_EMERG

FC-AL LINK_FAILURE!!!
LOG_ERR

FC-AL RECOVERABLE ERRORS: LOG_WARNING

OVER_TEMPERATURE_SHUTDOWN!!!
LOG_EMERG

OVER_TEMPERATURE_WARNING!!!
LOG_EMERG

PARTNER DOWN, TAKEOVER IMPOSSIBLE
LOG_ALERT

POSSIBLE BAD RAM: LOG_ERR

POSSIBLE UNLINKED INODE: LOG_ERR

REBOOT (CLUSTER TAKEOVER)
LOG_ALERT

REBOOT (after WAFL_check)
LOG_INFO

REBOOT (after entering firmware)
LOG_INFO

REBOOT (after giveback)
LOG_INFO

REBOOT (halt command)
LOG_INFO

REBOOT (internal halt)
LOG_INFO

REBOOT (internal reboot)
LOG_INFO

REBOOT (panic)
LOG_CRIT

REBOOT (power glitch)
LOG_INFO

REBOOT (power on)
LOG_INFO

REBOOT (reboot command)
LOG_INFO

REBOOT (watchdog reset)
LOG_CRIT

REBOOT: LOG_INFO

SHELF COOLING UNIT FAILED: LOG_EMERG

SHELF COOLING UNIT FAILED: LOG_WARNING

SHELF_FAULT!!!
LOG_ALERT

SNMP USER DEFINED TRAP: LOG_INFO

SPARE_FAIL!!!
LOG_ALERT

SYSTEM_CONFIGURATION_CRITICAL_ERROR: LOG_CRIT

SYSTEM_CONFIGURATION_ERROR: LOG_ERR

UNDER_TEMPERATURE_SHUTDOWN!!!
LOG_EMERG

UNDER_TEMPERATURE_WARNING!!!
LOG_EMERG

USER_TRIGGERED ([user input from autosupport.doit]) LOG_INFO

WAFL_check!!!
LOG_ALERT

WEEKLY_LOG: LOG_INFO

[EMS event]
LOG_INFO

[fan] FAN_FAIL!!!
LOG_ALERT

[mini core]
LOG_CRIT

[power supply failure]
LOG_ALERT

[power supply] POWER_SUPPLY_DEGRADED!!!
LOG_ALERT

[shelf over temperature critical]
LOG_EMERG

CLUSTER CONSIDERATIONS

The autosupport email messages from a filer in a cluster are different from the autosupport email messages from a standalone filer in the following ways:

The subject in the autosupport email messages from a filer in a cluster reads, “Cluster notification, ” instead of “System notification.”

The autosupport email messages from a filer in a cluster contains information about its partner, such as the partner system ID and the partner host name.

In takeover mode, if you reboot the live filer, two autosupport email messages notify the email recipients of the reboot: one is from the live filer and one is from the failed filer.

The live filer sends an autosupport email message after it finishes the takeover process.