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.
The subject line of the mail sent by the autosupport mechanism contains a text string to identify the reason for the notification. The messages and other information in the notification should be used to check on the problem being reported. The following are the cases where mail is sent automatically by the system and the subject line text that identifies the reason for the notification. The events that trigger the short note emails (if a recipient list is configured) are noted below and will contain the subject line reason text string and the time of failure in the email data.
1. Weekly notification is marked "WEEKLY_LOG"
2. Data disk failure notification is marked
"DISK_FAIL!!!". This event also sends the short
note mail.
3. Spare disk failure notification is marked
"SPARE_FAIL!!!". This event also sends the short
note mail.
4. Disk scrubbing fixing disk errors is marked
"DISK_SCRUB!!!".
5. Failure of a fan in the system is notified with
"FAN_FAIL!!!". This event also sends the short
note mail.
6. Low NVRAM battery triggers notification with
"BATTERY_LOW!!!". This event also sends the short
note mail.
7. If a disk shelf reports errors, notification is
sent with "SHELF_FAULT!!!". This event also sends
the short note mail.
8. If one of the power supplies in a redundant power
supply unit fails, notification is sent with
"POWER_SUPPLY_DEGRADED!!!". This event also sends
the short note mail.
9. If the system shuts down because it has detected
that the temperature inside the filer is too high,
notification is sent with
"OVER_TEMPERATURE_SHUTDOWN!!!". This event also
sends the short note mail.
10. System reboot notification is sent with "REBOOT".
This event also sends the short note mail.
The setup command does the following for the autosupport feature:
If an adminhost is specified, it adds an entry for mailhost with the same address as the adminhost to the /etc/hosts file.
The following information is sent:
1. Generation date and time stamp
2. Software version
3. System ID
4. Hostname
5. SNMP contact name (if specified)
6. SNMP location (if specified)
7. Output from sysconfig -v
8. The system serial number, if the system has one.
9. Currently held license codes.
10. Output from options
11. Output from ifconfig -a
12. Output from nfsstat -c
13. Output from cifs stat, cifs sessions, and cifs
shares. (Included if CIFS is licensed.)
14. Output from httpstat
15. Output from df
16. Output from df -i
17. Output from snap sched
18. Output from sysconfig -r
19. The /etc/messages file
The autosupport feature is manipulated through the options command (see na_options(1)).
The options choices are:
autosupport.enable:
on,off
autosupport.mailhost:
Comma-separated list (no spaces)
autosupport.to:
Comma-separated list (no spaces)
autosupport.noteto:
Comma-separated list (no spaces)
autosupport.from:
Local user name
autosupport.doit:
text word describing reason
autosupport.enable: Default is on. This option is a switch to enable/disable the autosupport email feature. Customers who wish to disable autosupport permanently will need to set the option in /etc/rc with the command
options autosupport.enable off
autosupport.mailhost: Default is mailhost. Enter the list of mailhosts separated by "," and no spaces. Up to 5 hosts will be accepted. The autosupport mechanism will try to contact each listed host in turn until it gets a successful SMTP connection. The default mailhost address is set to the adminhost address in /etc/hosts with a command such as
options autosupport.mailhost mercury,venus,mars
autosupport.to: Default is autosupport@netapp.com. Enter the list of recipients separated by "," and no spaces. Up to 5 email addresses may be listed with a command such as
options autosupport.to sysadm,autosupport@netapp.com
autosupport.noteto: Default is an empty list (short note will not be sent). Enter the list of recipients separated by "," and no spaces. Up to 5 email addresses may be listed with a command such as
options autosupport.from sysadm
autosupport.doit: This is a trigger to send the email out. The text word argument to this option is sent in the email subject line. This is used to identify the reason for the notification. To send system information at any time on a running system you can type a command such as
options autosupport.doit SYSTEM_INFO
Error conditions are logged through syslog at level LOG_ERR.
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.
options autosupport.enable off
If you enable autosupport, remember to add the following lines in /etc/rc with your name, phone number and site name.
For example,
snmp contact "John - 415-555-1212" snmp location "ABC Corporation, Engg Lab"
Add the lines with your information even if you do not use SNMP. This information is sent in the notification and can help the email recipient contact you proactively in case of a problem.