About Smart Call Home
Smart Call Home provides an email-based notification for critical system policies. A range of message formats are available for compatibility with pager services, standard email, or XML-based automated parsing applications. You can use this feature to page a network support engineer, email a Network Operations Center, or use Cisco Smart Call Home services to automatically generate a case with the Technical Assistance Center.
Smart Call Home offers the following features:
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Automatic execution and attachment of relevant CLI command output.
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Multiple message format options such as the following:
- Short Text—Suitable for pagers or printed reports.
- Full Text—Fully formatted message information suitable for human reading.
- XML—Machine-readable format that uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Adaptive Messaging Language (AML) XML schema definition (XSD). The AML XSD is published on the Cisco.com website. The XML format enables communication with the Technical Assistance Center.
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Multiple concurrent message destinations. You can configure up to 50 email destination addresses for each destination profile.
Destination Profiles
A destination profile includes the following information:
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One or more alert groups—The group of alerts that trigger a specific Smart Call Home message if the alert occurs.
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One or more email destinations—The list of recipients for the Smart Call Home messages generated by alert groups assigned to this destination profile.
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Message format—The format for the Smart Call Home message (short text, full text, or XML).
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Message severity level—The Smart Call Home severity level that the alert must meet before Cisco NX-OS generates a Smart Call Home message to all email addresses in the destination profile. Cisco NX-OS does not generate an alert if the Smart Call Home severity level of the alert is lower than the message severity level set for the destination profile.
You can also configure a destination profile to allow periodic inventory update messages by using the inventory alert group that will send out periodic messages daily, weekly, or monthly.
Cisco NX-OS supports the following predefined destination profiles:
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CiscoTAC-1—Supports the Cisco-TAC alert group in XML message format. This profile is preconfigured with the callhome@cisco.com email contact, maximum message size, and message severity level 0. You cannot change any of the default information for this profile.
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full-text-destination—Supports the full text message format.
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short-text-destination—Supports the short text message format.
Smart Call Home Alert Groups
An alert group is a predefined subset of Smart Call Home alerts that are supported in all Cisco Nexus devices. Alert groups allow you to select the set of Smart Call Home alerts that you want to send to a predefined or custom destination profile. The device sends Smart Call Home alerts to email destinations in a destination profile only if that Smart Call Home alert belongs to one of the alert groups associated with that destination profile and if the alert has a Smart Call Home message severity at or above the message severity set in the destination profile.
The following table lists the supported alert groups and the default CLI command output included in Smart Call Home messages generated for the alert group.
Alert Group |
Description |
Executed Commands |
---|---|---|
Cisco-TAC |
All critical alerts from the other alert groups destined for Smart Call Home. |
Execute commands based on the alert group that originates the alert. |
Configuration |
Periodic events related to configuration. |
show module show version |
Diagnostic |
Events generated by diagnostics. |
show diagnostic result module all detail show diagnostic result module number detail show hardware show logging last 200 show module show sprom all show tech-support gold show tech-support ha show tech-support platform show version |
EEM |
Events generated by EEM. |
show diagnostic result module all detail show diagnostic result module number detail show module show tech-support gold show tech-support ha show tech-support platform |
Environmental |
Events related to power, fan, and environment-sensing elements such as temperature alarms. |
show environment show logging last 200 show module show version |
Inventory |
Inventory status that is provided whenever a unit is cold booted or when FRUs are inserted or removed. This alert is considered a noncritical event, and the information is used for status and entitlement. |
show inventory show license usage show module show sprom all show system uptime show version |
License |
Events related to licensing and license violations. |
show logging last 200 |
Linecard hardware |
Events related to standard or intelligent switching modules. |
show diagnostic result module all detail show diagnostic result module number detail show hardware show logging last 200 show module show sprom all show tech-support ethpm show tech-support gold show tech-support ha show tech-support platform show version |
Supervisor hardware |
Events related to supervisor modules. |
show diagnostic result module all detail show hardware show logging last 200 show module show sprom all show tech-support ethpm show tech-support gold show tech-support ha show tech-support platform show version |
Syslog port group |
Events generated by the syslog PORT facility. |
show license usage show logging last 200 |
System |
Events generated by failure of a software system that is critical to unit operation. |
show diagnostic result module all detail show hardware show logging last 200 show module show sprom all show tech-support ethpm show tech-support gold show tech-support ha show tech-support platform |
Test |
User-generated test message. |
show module show version |
Smart Call Home maps the syslog severity level to the corresponding Smart Call Home severity level for syslog port group messages.
You can customize predefined alert groups to execute additional CLI show commands when specific events occur and send that show output with the Smart Call Home message.
You can add show commands only to full text and XML destination profiles. Short text destination profiles do not support additional show commands because they only allow 128 bytes of text.
Smart Call Home Message Levels
Smart Call Home allows you to filter messages based on their level of urgency. You can associate each predefined or user-defined destination profile with a Smart Call Home threshold from 0 (least urgent) to 9 (most urgent). The default is 0 (all messages are sent).
Syslog severity levels are mapped to the Smart Call Home message level.
Note |
Smart Call Home does not change the syslog message level in the message text. |
The following table lists each Smart Call Home message level keyword and the corresponding syslog level for the syslog port alert group.
Smart Call Home Level |
Keyword |
Syslog Level |
Description |
---|---|---|---|
9 |
Catastrophic |
N/A |
Network-wide catastrophic failure. |
8 |
Disaster |
N/A |
Significant network impact. |
7 |
Fatal |
Emergency (0) |
System is unusable. |
6 |
Critical |
Alert (1) |
Critical conditions that indicate that immediate attention is needed. |
5 |
Major |
Critical (2) |
Major conditions. |
4 |
Minor |
Error (3) |
Minor conditions. |
3 |
Warning |
Warning (4) |
Warning conditions. |
2 |
Notification |
Notice (5) |
Basic notification and informational messages. Possibly independently insignificant. |
1 |
Normal |
Information (6) |
Normal event signifying return to normal state. |
0 |
Debugging |
Debug (7) |
Debugging messages. |
Obtaining Smart Call Home
If you have a service contract directly with Cisco, you can register for the Smart Call Home service. Smart Call Home analyzes Smart Call Home messages and provides background information and recommendations. For known issues, particularly online diagnostics failures, Automatic Service Requests are generated with the Cisco TAC.
Smart Call Home offers the following features:
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Continuous device health monitoring and real-time diagnostic alerts.
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Analysis of Smart Call Home messages and, if needed, Automatic Service Request generation, routed to the correct TAC team, including detailed diagnostic information to speed problem resolution.
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Secure message transport directly from your device, through an HTTP proxy server, or a downloadable Transport Gateway (TG). You can use a TG aggregation point to support multiple devices or in cases where security dictates that your devices may not be connected directly to the Internet.
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Web-based access to Smart Call Home messages and recommendations, inventory, and configuration information for all Smart Call Home devices. This feature provides access to associated field notices, security advisories, and end-of-life information.
You need the following information to register:
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The SMARTnet contract number for your device
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Your email address
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Your Cisco.com ID
Database Merge Guidelines
When you merge two Smart Call Home databases, the following guidelines apply:
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The merged database contains the following information:
- A superset of all the destination profiles from the merging devices.
- The destination profile email addresses and alert groups.
- Other configuration information (for example, message throttling, or periodic inventory) present in the managing device.
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Destination profile names cannot be duplicated within the merging devices—even though the configurations are different, the names cannot be duplicated. If a profile name is duplicated, one of the duplicate profiles must first be deleted or the merger fails.
High Availability
Both stateful and stateless restarts are supported for Smart Call Home.
Virtualization Support
One instance of Smart Call Home is supported. You can register your contact information at the Smart Call Home web site at the following URL: https://supportforums.cisco.com/community/netpro/solutions/smart_services/smartcallhome
You can test Smart Call Home using the callhome send and callhome test commands.
Smart Call Home is virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) aware. You can configure Smart Call Home to use a particular VRF to reach the Smart Call Home SMTP server.