About Autosupport

Autosupport described

The Autosupport feature sends messages automatically to Network Appliance^TM Technical Support, members of your organization, or both, depending on how you configure Autosupport. Autosupport messages alert recipients about problems and potential problems with the NetCache appliance. Network Appliance strongly encourages you to use the Autosupport feature.

Reasons for using Autosupport

Network Appliance recommends that you include Network Appliance Technical Support as a recipient of your Autosupport messages for the following reasons:

Network Appliance has programmed scripts to automatically look for particular data in Autosupport weekly reports that might indicate a potential problem. Some Network Appliance customers have been surprised when they were alerted by Network Appliance Technical Support about potential system problems--before the customers were aware that their appliances were not functioning optimally.
Network Appliance will help you solve problems that Autosupport detects. Network Appliance provides a range of support, including automated parts replacement, e-mail contact, and contact by a Technical Support engineer, depending on the type of problem. For example, if Network Appliance receives a message that a disk failure occurred on your NetCache appliance, a replacement disk is automatically sent to you.

Protection of private data

Revealing private data outside your company does not need to be a concern. You can set up Autosupport so that private data is not included in the messages sent to Network Appliance. Additionally, you have a choice of transports, including HTTPS, over which Autosupport messages to Network Appliance can be sent.

Types of Autosupport messages

Autosupport generates the types of messages shown in the following table. Details about the contents of Autosupport messages appear later in the chapter.

Type	Description
Event alert	A brief one-line message that Autosupport sends to recipients you have identified when an event tracked by Autosupport occurs. Event alerts are commonly sent to personnel with devices such as pagers who want to be notified of problems when they are in the field. Event alerts and event messages are sent at the same time.
Event message	A message that Autosupport sends to recipients you have identified when an event tracked by Autosupport occurs. The subject line is the same one-line description that is sent as an event alert. The message contains information to help you diagnose and troubleshoot the problem. Event alerts and event messages are sent at the same time.
Weekly report	A message that Autosupport sends automatically each week to recipients you have identified. Unlike event alerts and event messages, weekly reports are not triggered by a particular event.

Type

Description

Event alert

A brief one-line message that Autosupport sends to recipients you have identified when an event tracked by Autosupport occurs. Event alerts are commonly sent to personnel with devices such as pagers who want to be notified of problems when they are in the field.

Event alerts and event messages are sent at the same time.

Event message

A message that Autosupport sends to recipients you have identified when an event tracked by Autosupport occurs. The subject line is the same one-line description that is sent as an event alert. The message contains information to help you diagnose and troubleshoot the problem.

Event alerts and event messages are sent at the same time.

Weekly report

A message that Autosupport sends automatically each week to recipients you have identified. Unlike event alerts and event messages, weekly reports are not triggered by a particular event.

Events that trigger Autosupport messages

If Autosupport is enabled, Autosupport generates an event alert and an event message when an event in the following table occurs.

Event	Subject line of the message
Low NVRAM lithium battery	BATTERY_LOW!!!
Disk failure	DISK_FAIL!!!
Disk failed reconstruction	DISK RECONSTRUCTION FAILED!!!
Out-of-date disk Messages log detected	DISK_FIRMWARE_NEEDED_UPDATE!!!
Fan failure	FAN_FAIL!!!
Shutdown because of overheating	OVER_TEMPERATURE_SHUTDOWN!!!
Partial RPS failure (One of the two power supplies on a NetCache appliance using a redundant power supply (RPS) has ceased functioning.)	POWER_SUPPLY_DEGRADED!!!
System reboot	REBOOT
System reboot using the `reboot` command	REBOOT (reboot command)
System reboot using the `halt` command	REBOOT (halt command)
System reboot caused by an internal halt	REBOOT (internal halt)
System reboot caused by an internal reboot	REBOOT (internal reboot)
System reboot caused by a watchdog timer reset	REBOOT (watchdog reset)
System reboot caused by turning on power	REBOOT (power on)
System reboot following a panic	REBOOT (panic)
System reboot after loading firmware	REBOOT (after entering firmware)
System reboot after running a WAFL^TM check	REBOOT (after WAFL_check)
System reboot for an unknown reason	REBOOT (unknown reason)
System reboot caused by a power glitch, for example, a power interruption	REBOOT (power glitch)
`wack` command was run	WAFL_check!!!
Fibre channel arbitrated loop is unreliable	FC-AL UNRELIABLE!!!
Fibre channel arbitrated loop has link failures	FC-AL LINK_FAILURE!!!
Storage health monitor detected degraded disk I/O	DISK_IO_DEGRADED!!!
Storage health monitor detected a SCSI sense error	DISK_RECOVERED_ERRORS!!!
Storage health monitor detected low disk throughput	DISK_LOW_THRUPUT!!!
Storage health monitor detected an impending disk failure	DISK_FAILURE_PREDICTED!!!
Incorrect system hardware configuration detected (PCI card only)	SYSTEM_CONFIGURATION_ERROR
Fibre channel disk shelf configuration error	CONFIGURATION_ERROR!!!
Disk shelf error	SHELF_FAULT!!!
Spare disk failure	SPARE FAIL!!!
Weekly backup of /etc/messages	WEEKLY_LOG
`option autosupport.doit` command	USER_TRIGGERED (user supplied subject)
Log file push failure	LOG_PUSHING_FAILED
SmartFilter one week from expiring	SmartFilter on NetCache
WebWasher license expiration	WebWasher on NetCache
Minicore sent to Network Appliance	Subject determined by Autosupport

Content of Autosupport event messages and weekly reports

The following table shows the type of content that can be included in event messages and weekly reports. The content that is actually included depends on whether you specify Complete or Minimal as the detail level for event messages and weekly reports.

"Filtered" in the Minimal column means that sensitive data is removed. For example, only nonsensitive content from the Messages log is sent if the level of detail is specified as Minimal. If the level of detail is specified as Minimal, regardless of content type, IP addresses and MAC addresses are removed. Either the system ID (the default) or host name is included in the subject line of the message when the level of detail is Minimal. You control whether the system ID or host name is included by using the Identifier to use in subject line of minimal Autosupport messages option.

Content	Complete detail	Minimal detail
Date and time stamp of the message	X	X
Software licenses enabled on the NetCache appliance	X	X
Service usage (availability statistics)	X	X
System serial number (if available)	X	X
NetCache software version	X	X
NetCache appliance system ID	X	X
NetCache appliance host name	X	Configurable
SNMP contact name and location (if specified in the SNMP page)	X	--
Messages log contents	X	Filtered
ECC memory scrubber statistics	X	X
Registry statistics	X	X
NetCache statistics	X	--
Cumulative HTTP/FTP/NNTP/streaming statistics	X	--
NetCache configuration changes from default	X	--
Volume status	X	X
Checksum status	X	X
Parity Inconsistency (PI) information	X	X
WAFL check logs	X	Filtered
Hit rates	X	--
Utilization statistics	X	Filtered
WAFL statistics	X	X
Output from the following console commands:
sysconfig -a sysconfig -c sysconfig -d sysconfig -r	X	X (-a filtered)
options	X	Filtered
ifconfig -a	X	--
ifstat -a	X	Filtered
df df -i	X	X
vol status vol status -v vol status -c	X	X
fcstat fcal_stats fcstat device_map fcstat link_stats	X	X
/etc/messages	X	Filtered
perf report -t	X	X