Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

About ESA

  1. What is IBM® Electronic Service Agent and when is it used?

    Answer: IBM Electronic Service Agent is a no-charge software tool that resides on your system to automatically and continuously monitor, collect, and submit hardware problem information to the IBM Electronic Service Agent website. IBM Electronic Service Agent can also routinely collect and submit hardware, software, and system configuration information, which might help IBM Support in diagnosing problems. Refer to IBM Electronic Service Agent - IBM Documentation for more information.

  2. What platforms does IBM Electronic Service Agent support?

    Answer:

    1. ESA supports AIX, Linux(PLinux and X86) and AIX
    2. ESA also has docker/Kubernetes support

    For more information, see ESA Overview for different features that ESA supports in each of these platforms.

    How to install ESA?
    1. ESA installation on Power Linux, X86 as rpm:
    How to upgrade ESA?
    1. Upgrade rpm:
      1. Ensure that all the prerequisites for the new version are satisfied.
      2. Execute the command: rpm -Uvh <<esa.rpm>
    2. Upgrade docker/kubernetes:
      • To upgrade in IKP environment:
        1. Delete the existing deployment.
        2. Get the existing deployment using command: kubectl get deployments and delete using command kubectl delete deployment <deployment-name>
        3. Update the image name in esa-deployment.yaml file. In our environments, its named as new-esa-deployment-withpvc-nfs.yaml.
        4. Apply the YAML file using the command: kubectl apply -f new-esa-deployment-withpvc-nfs.yaml
        5. Wait for a while, then check for Pods, kubectl get pods and Pod should be in running state.
        6. Login to UI and Activate ESA. ESA-Client also will be available.
      • For more information, see Kubernetes Configuration Guide.
  3. Are these progressive updates, can we update from any backdated version to the current version?

    Answer: If all the prerequisites of the current version are satisfied, it is possible to update from a backdated version to the current version (say 4.6.0-2 to 4.6.1.2). But, we recommend doing the upgrade from the last available version to the current version.

  4. What are the prerequisites to install ESA?

    Answer:

    1. Software requirements:
      1. Java11
      2. Perl-XML-Parser
    2. Ports used:
      1. 5024 – For ESA WEB UI
      2. 5026 – optional to setup an ESA proxy
      3. 5028 – optional and for KVM systems only
    3. Firewalls to be enabled:

      For ESA to communicate successfully, your external firewall must allow outbound packets to flow freely on port 80 and port 443. You can use Source Network Address Translation (SNAT) and masquerading rules to hide the ESA system's source IP address.

      On your firewall, you might choose to limit the specific IP addresses to which the ESA system can connect. The section ‘IBM Server Address List’ contains the list of IP addresses and ports of the IBM servers. For more information, see IP Addresses details.

  5. Can we configure ESA to use port other than 5024?

    Answer: Yes. For more information on how to change ports, see Interactive activation and Command activation pages.

  6. Once installed, can we downgrade the ESA version, that is, can we roll back to the previously installed version.

    Answer:

    No, it is not possible to downgrade ESA version in Power Linux and X86 systems.

  7. what is suspend/resume functionality in ESA?

    Answer: ESA in suspended state will not transmit any information (problems, hardware/software inventory, heartbeat) to IBM. Only after resuming a suspended ESA instance, information can be transferred again. For more information, refer to ESACLI Suspend and ESACLI Resume pages.

ESA Client Installation and Configuration

  1. How to validate if connectivity to IBM is fine?

    Answer: For details, see Testing Connectivity to IBM page.

  2. What is ESA-client and is it required on all platforms?

    Answer: ESA-client provides a provision to register remote MVS (DELL, HP, Lenovo) machines to ESA and reports the hardware problems from these registered machines to CSESA. ESA-client is a SNMP trap listener which listens for the SNMP traps on the port 162(default) and reports these traps as problems to the ESA application. This is a Python based application.

  3. How to install and configure ESA-client?

    Answer: For more information, refer to Installing the ESA application page.

  4. How to register remote end-points using ESA-client?

    Answer: For more information, refer to Importing a Configuration page.

  5. Is ESA-client the only option to register remote endpoints with ESA?

    Answer: Remote end-points can also be registered using the ESA Rest APIS. However, when ESA-client is used, it connects to remote systems and receives the information required to register the systems with CSESA, such as machine name, serail, and model. Clients which do not use the ESA-client should develop their own methods of getting these essential parameters in order to register systems with ESA. Also, ESA-client operates as an SNMP Listener and receives traps from the MVS systems (HP, Lenovo, and DELL), parses these traps, processes them, and reports to ESA-server, which then sends this problem to IBM backend.

  6. Is it possible to install ESA-client on a machine different than ESA?

    Answer: No, this configuration is not supported in the current version.

  7. How to start / restart ESA-client ESA?

    Answer: ESA-client should be started/re-started from ESA UI. For more information, see SNMP Configuration Settings.

  8. Does ESA-client automatically restart when the ESA application is restarted?

    Answer: No, ESA-client will not be restarted while restarting ESA.

MVS (HP, Lenovo, DELL) System Registration

  1. How do we register systems to MVS?

    Answer: For more details, see Manage Configuration page.

  2. What is contract_inventory.xlsx?

    Answer: Contract_inventory.xlsx lists systems with valid contracts. To be successfully registered, a remote system must have a matching serial number in the contract inventory file.

    • To effectively report a problem, details such as 'customer number' and 'productSLC' must have valid values (as registered in the back-end) against the serial number of the machine from which the problem is reported.
    • This file should not be edited manually.
  3. Can we update the contract_inventory.xlsx file after the systems are registered?

    Answer: Follow the below given steps to update contract_inventory.xlsx.

    1. Go to “Discovery” and “SNMP Listener” panel.
    2. Upload new Contract_Inventory file and apply the configuration to ESA-Client.
    3. Run the below command: 
      python3 /opt/ibm/esaclient/lib/restAPI/UpdateEndPointsFromContractInventory.py
  4. How to check if system registration is failed?

    Answer: The system registration status can be found on the discovery log page in the UI. For more information, see Discovering Systems page.

  5. What are the possible causes for a system registration to get failed?
    Answer: Following are some of the reasons.
    1. Credentials entered in the file (from Manage configuration) are not correct for the given remote system.
    2. There is no connectivity to the remote system from ESA.
    3. The details collected from the remote system are not compliant with what ESA expects.
    4. System serail is not listed in the contract_inventory file
  6. Can I register a single MVS node on two ESA instances?

    Answer: You should not register the same MVS node on two MVS instances, this would lead to corrupt environment.

ESA Problem Reporting

  1. What is a Primary System?

    Answer: A system on which ESA is installed and activated is called the Primary System.

  2. What kind of problems do ESA report?

    Answer: ESA reports the hardware problems identified.

  3. What is the prerequisite for a problem to be reported by ESA?

    Answer:

    For reporting problems from a standalone system (Primary system) , ESA should be installed, activated and configured. For more information, see the Installation page.

    To report problems from a remote system, system should be registered with CSESA, with correct contact and location details. It should be a valid system registered with the backend, see Specifying Service Contact information page.

  4. Can we by-pass ESA-client and still use ESA for problem reporting?

    Answer:

    ESA-client shall be used in cases where hardware issues from remote systems are sent as SNMP traps. ESA-client listens on the port 162, receives these traps and reports to CS-ESA which informs the IBM back-end.

    ESA Rest APIs can also be used to report problems to ESA.

  5. Is there an option to configure ESA to not report problems from a specific system?

    Answer: For more information, see Creating Event filters page.

  6. Is there an option to configure ESA to not report problems for certain error codes?

    Answer: For more information, see Creating Event filters page.

  7. Will Problem data (Extended Error Data) be automatically collected and sent to IBM as part of problem reporting?

    Answer: Yes, once a hardware problem is reported from any of the supported devices/systems, EED will be collected and transmitted to IBM along-with the problem.

  8. Do customers receive notifications about the status of the problem transmission?

    Answer: Yes. Customer can configure the notification settings using ESA UI/CLI. For more information, see Configuring Notification settings.

  9. How do you test the problem reporting feature of ESA?

    Answer:

    Select the All Systems Panel>>View Problems. Select the Send Test Problem button at the bottom of the screen.

    This sends a test problem for the selected system. EED will also be collected and transmitted for this problem.

  10. How to verify if the register MVS systems can send traps to ESA-client?

    Answer: Select the SNMP Status field from the All Systems Panel. This indicates whether or not there is SNMP connectivity between the distant system and ESA. To get the most recent status, choose the remote system and click on Test SNMP Connectivity.

  11. When and how to use contact and location REST APIs?

    Answer: For detailed information, refer to Updating Multiple Contacts and Locations page.

  12. Is it possible not to report an issue from a certain system or for a particular error code?

    Answer: For detailed information, refer to Creating Event Filters page.

View Details from ESA GUI

  1. How to login to ESA UI?

    Answer: Login to the ESA web UI using the URL: https://<<machine-name>>:<<5024>>/esa

    .
  2. Is it possible for a user other than root to access ESA UI?

    Answer: Yes, for Linux and X86, ESA employs PAM authentication, and any user in the ESA group on the system can log in. ESA generates a default user named esaadmin. ESA does not handle the passwords for these users. Create a password for the esaadmin account and use it to log into the ESA UI. For more information, see Kubernetes Configuration Guide.

  3. How to view system details from ESA UI?

    Answer: For details, refer to Displaying System Details page.

  4. How to view problem details from ESA UI?

    Answer: For details, refer to Displaying Problem Information page.

  5. When to use import/export feature of ESA?

    Answer: The export capability can be used to save all of the values configured for a given ESA instance to a file. Another ESA can import this configuration by using the file exported by the export feature.

  6. When to use backup/restore feature of ESA?

    Answer: Backup feature can be used to take a backup of the current ESA instance. It is advisable to take periodic backups, and restore feature can be used to reconstruct the ESA configuration including the backup file created. For more information, see Backup CLI page.

  7. Can we access ESA logs from UI?

    Answer: ESA and ESA-client logs can be downloaded from the ESA UI. For more information, see the Tools >> IBM Electronic Support >> Collect Logs page.