Changing settings for call home with cloud services

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If you have the call home with cloud services function configured on your system, you can use either the management GUI or the command-line interface to update notification settings.

Call Home with cloud services sends notifications directly to a centralized file repository that contains troubleshooting information that is gathered from your system. Support personnel can access this repository and be assigned issues automatically as problem reports. This method of transmitting notifications from the system to support removes the need for you to create problem reports manually.

When call home with cloud services is configured as part of system setup, the support center contact information is automatically added to the configuration and is based on the customer number and product identification information. These values cannot be changed. However, other settings such as inventory notifications can be changed to suit your environment.

Using the management GUI

To update current notification settings for call home with cloud services, complete these steps:

  1. In the management GUI, select Settings > Support > Call Home.
  2. On the Call Home page, select Send data with Call Home cloud services, click Edit, and then click Next.
  3. Verify that the connection status is Active and a message displays that indicates the connection was successful. If the connection status displays Error, select Monitoring > Events. If Call Home with cloud services is configured, the following connection statuses can be displayed:
    Active
    Indicates that the connection is active between the system and the IBM Support. A timestamp displays with the last successful connection between the system and the IBM Support.
    Error
    Indicates that the system cannot connect to the IBM Support through Call Home with cloud services. The system attempts connections every 30 minutes and if the connection continually fails for four hours, an event error is raised and is displayed. A timestamp displays when the failed connection attempt occurred. Select Monitoring > Events to determine the cause of the problem. Use the lscloudcallhome command to display the status of the connection. The system attempts connections for four hours and if the connection continually fails, an event error is raised. If the connection parameter displays error_sequence_number, the last attempt to connect to the IBM Support failed. The error_sequence_number indicates the error number that can be used to determine the cause of the problem. One common issue that causes connection errors between the system and IBM Support is firewall filters that exclude connections to the IBM Support.
    Untried
    Indicates that Call Home with cloud services is enabled but the system is waiting for the results from the connection test to the IBM Support. After the test completes, the connection status changes to either Active or Error.
  4. To define an internal proxy server to manage connections between the system and support, click Add Proxy. A DNS server is required to use an internal proxy server with Call Home with cloud services. The management GUI prompts you to define a DNS server if one is not configured.
  5. Under Additional Settings, enter your preferences for inventory intervals and configuration reporting. Inventory reports can be configured with Call Home and provides additional information to support personnel. An inventory report summarizes the hardware components and configuration of a system. Support personnel can use this information to contact you when relevant updates are available or when an issue that can affect your configuration is discovered. By default, these reports include configuration data that support personnel can use to automatically generate recommendations that are based on your actual configuration. You can have sensitive data that is redacted from these reports, if necessary.
  6. Click Save.

Using the CLI

Contact information cannot be changed for call home with cloud services since it uses predefined values based on your system model, geographic location, and other information that the system uses to establish the connection to support. You can change settings only for inventory notifications and configuration data for call home with cloud services.

If you want to change the frequency that inventory notifications are sent, enter the following command:
chsystem -invemailinterval interval
where interval is the number of days that you want inventory notifications to be sent.
Inventory notifications can include enhanced reports that include specific configuration information. The support center can use this information to automatically generate recommendations that are based on your actual configuration. To include these enhanced reports with the inventory notifications, enter the following command:
chsystem -invemailinterval interval -enhancedcallhome on
If you want to send enhanced reports, but do not want to include sensitive data in these notifications, enter the following command: 
chsystem -invemailinterval interval -enhancedcallhome on -censorcallhome on