UCS Smart Call Home Troubleshooting

Introduction

This document provides the steps to take when troubleshooting an issue with the Smart Call Home (SCH) feature after it has already been configured.

Prerequisites

Requirements

Cisco recommends that you have knowledge of these topics:

• Smart Call Home

Components Used

This document is not restricted to specific software and hardware versions.

Conventions

Refer to Cisco Technical Tips Conventions for more information on document conventions.

Set Up Call-Home Feature on Cisco UCS

Go to the Configuring Call Home section in the Cisco UCS Manager GUI Configuration Guide, Release 2.0.

Here is a short video on configuring: Smart Call Home Configuration on UCS

Troubleshooting Methodology

Assuming that you have already checked the configuration and have registered for the SCH service, complete these steps in order to troubleshoot SCH issues in the UCS B-series servers.

1. SSH to the UCS active FI.

2. Connect nxos.

3. debug callhome all

4. In a web browser connect to the UCSM.

   1. In the Navigation pane, click the Admin tab.

   2. On the Admin tab, expand All > Communication Management > Call Home.

   3. In the Work pane, click the System Inventory tab.

   4. In the Actions area, click Send System Inventory Now.

5. In the FI under nxos prompt: undebug all Check to see if an email was sent out to the recipient configured for Call Home. If you did not and you see errors in your debug output check your SCH configuration on the UCS. Otherwise, continue to the next step.

6. Try to capture the SCH mail packets with ethanalyzer. Ethanalyzer provides sniffing capabilities to NX-OS within the operating system, simplifying the need for a third party network probe.

   In nxos under nxos prompt:

   1. debug callhome all

   2. ethanalyzer local sniff-interface mgmt capture-filter "port smtp" limit-captured-frames 0

   By default Ethanalyzer captures up to 10 frames. Utilize the limit-captured-frames to change the value or set it to a different value or remove the limit by using the value 0.

   This is an attempt to collect the debug and packet capture for the same event, and to limit the packet capture to only the smtp port.

7. Repeat step 4 to send the inventory again. Follow this with step 5 to turn off the debug and ethanalyzer. Note: CTRL+C can be utilized to stop the ethanalyzer capture.

8. Again, check to see if an email was sent out to the recipient configured for Call Home. If your configuration is correct you should see the email go out in the ethanalyzer capture. If the recipients did not get the email check ethanlyzer output for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) errors. It can be that the SMTP server is not configured properly.

9. If the emails were sent out to the recipient configured for Call Home, but a SCH Cisco TAC Service Request (SR) was not opened go to this page: tools.cisco.com/sch

   This link will allow you to find out if the SCH backend has received any call-home alerts.

   They have all sorts of reports that you can run based on serial number/hostname device-id, etc.

   If you want to run test a Call Home alert instead of sending the inventory you can try the following in the place of the System Inventory.

The following is an excerpt from this page: Sending a Test Call Home Alert

Step 1	UCS-A# scope monitoring  	
Enters monitoring mode.

Step 3	UCS-A /monitoring/callhome # send-test-alert
Sends a test Call Home alert using one or more of the following alert parameters:

 Alert description
 Alert group
 Event severity level
 Message type
 Message subtype

When a test Call Home alert is sent, Call Home responds as it would to any other alert and delivers it to the configured destination email addresses.

The next example sends a test Call Home alert to the configured destination email address of the environmental alert group:

UCS-A# scope monitoring
UCS-A /monitoring # scope callhome
UCS-A /monitoring/callhome # send-test-alert alert-description 
"This is a test alert" alert-group environmental

Common Problems

Aside from the simple configuration problems, issues with networking or the mail servers are seen. Also, registration issues are common.

The IP address of the fabric inter-connects and the virtual IP address might need to be set up as a relay on the SMTP server.

Creating a new user registration requires:

• Valid Cisco.com ID for the to-be registered person.

• At least one valid contract for the company that is supported by Smart Call Home, when the to-be registered person needs to be registered as an Administrator.

A short video on How to Configure and Register Your Devices

With registration issues go to this link in order to resolve the issue as this involves the SCH registration team: Smart Call Home

Related Information

• Technical Support & Documentation - Cisco Systems