Discovering systems

IBM® Electronic Service Agent can monitor the configuration and discovery of multiple hosts.

To discover the hosts, follow these steps:

1. Access and log in to the IBM Electronic Service Agent graphical user interface.
2. Click Main menu from left navigation.
3. Click Discovery. You can add eBMC, BMC, OpenBMC, single or multiple remote systems in a single instance.
   Note: The ESA discovers only the IBM BMC, eBMC, and OpenBMC hosts. No other types of systems are supported.
   1. BMC
      Problem reporting through IPMI

      1. Enter the BMC Host Name or the IP address.
      2. Enter the admin User ID and Password of the system.

      Diagnostics data through SSH Additionally to enable EED collection for BMC device, you need to provide sysadmin credentials.

      1. For Admin User, enter the BMC system administrator ID.
      2. For Admin Password, enter the password of the system administrator ID.

      Click Verify Connectivity to test the connectivity to the BMC systems.

      Click Discover Now to discover the respective system. You can view the discovery status in the discovery log table.

      Note: The user IDs are used to create a new user on the BMC and the credentials are not stored anywhere. ESA updates the password for the new user ID (esaXXXXX) periodically.

      Click Clear to clear the Host Name, User ID, and Password fields.

   2. OpenBMC/eBMC
      1. Enter the Host Name or the IP address of the OpenBMC / eBMC system.
      2. Enter the User ID and Password of the system.
      3. Click Verify Connectivity to test the connectivity to the OpenBMC or eBMC systems.
      4. Click Discover Now to discover the respective system. You can view the discovery status in the discovery log table.
      5. Click Clear to clear the Host Name, User ID, and Password fields.

      Note: For ESS devices, the Spectrum Scale RAID application is responsible for controlling and monitoring the status of the storage subsystem. When Spectrum Scale RAID determines that a disk in an external storage unit is failed, it manages to move the data from the failed disk. The Spectrum Scale RAID also updates the status of the disk to "prepare for removal". When an accumulation of two disk units within the same resource group is failed, the Spectrum Scale RAID code initiates a call for service by notifying the ESA through a defined RESTful interface. The Spectrum Scale RAID code passes all of the relevant failure information to the ESA code, which then creates a Problem Management Record (PMR) with IBM Support. Each of the failed disks within the resource group has a separate Call Home for service event and resultant PMR. The PMR triggers IBM to initiate a service action and notify the client to make the necessary arrangements for servicing the storage unit. All of the reported failed disks are repaired at the time of service.
   3. Install ESA-Client

      ESA uses SSH connectivity for the initial configuration of ESA client, and ESA client also uses SSH protocol to configure the MVS nodes. The ESA-client is a service monitor that registers itself with MVS systems for receiving notifications when there is a hardware error. Whenever a hardware error is identified, the extended error data is collected by ESA-client and sends it to ESA, which is further sent to IBM for error analysis. ESA does a periodic transmission of heartbeat once in 7 days.

      To install an ESA-client on a particular remote system, you must first enter the Activation-code and click Verify.

      Note: The activation code is provided by the MVS Support team, only if there is a contract with IBM.

      Once the verification is successful, go through the following steps to install ESA-client:

      • Enter the Server IP address of the system.
      • Enter the User ID of the system.
      • Enter the Password of the system.
      • By default, the format of ESA-client is selected as either RPM or Docker Image based on primary system installation type of ESA. If Docker image is chosen, the ESA-client will be installed by default. But, you can choose to select either of the format.
        Note: ESA doesn’t support installation of ESA-client in docker format on a remote Power System.
      • Click Install/Upgrade to install or upgrade an ESA-client. During the installation of ESA-client, ibm_esaclient user is created. The ibm_esaclient user is used for all the communication from ESA to ESA-client. But for registration, ESA uses the root user credentials.
      • Click Check Status to view the status of ESA-client.
      • Click Clear to clear the Server IP, User ID, or Password fields.

      Note: You can install multiple ESA-clients.
   4. Advanced

      Discover multiple remote systems

      1. Discover from local file: Browse the data file from the local system.
         Note: Click Data Format File to download the template and make sure that your data is in the format specified.
      2. Discover from remote file: Enter the remote file name and path.
      3. Click Discover Now to add the respective system to the discovery log table and discovery. You can check the discovery log for details.
      4. Click Clear to clear the Discover from local file or Discover from remote file fields.
   5. Discovery Logs
      After you discover a system, the discovery log table is updated with the following system information:

      • Host Name - Displays the name of the system that is discovered. To filter or search for a particular system that you require, enter the initial letters or digits of the respective system in the Search field. A list of filtered systems is displayed.
      • User Id - Displays the user ID to log in to the system.
      • Start Time - Displays the time at which the discovery was started.
      • Updated Time - Displays the time at which the status is last updated.
      • Status - Displays the status of the discovery of a system.
        • Running - If the system is in discovery process.
        • Success - If ESA discovers the system successfully.
        • Failed - If ESA is unable to discover the system.
      • Status Details - Displays the details or reason for failure. For example,
        • If the discovery fails, the Status Details column displays - Discovery Action Failed.
        • If the discovery is successful, the Status Details column displays - Discovery Completed Successfully.
      • Click Refresh Log to update the discovery log details with the most recent discovery operations.

      Note: The discovery log details persist for 24 hours only, after which, the log details are deleted.
   6. SNMP Listener
      After ESA-client is verified by using the activation code, you can see the SNMP Listener tab. The SNMP listener receives SNMP trap notifications from the MVS systems. Follow these steps to configure the SNMP listener.
      
      

      • Select the ESA-client from the drop-down list. Click Manage Configuration link to view the systems that are configured to the particular ESA-client.
      • Click Manage Configuration link. The SNMP listener configuration window displays the systems that are configured to the particular ESA-client. Each system is displayed as a node in the configuration file in the following format:

        #node1 =
              {"type": "HP ILO5", "ipaddress": "x.x.x.x", "username": "YYY",
              "password":"ZZZ", "endpointname": "x.x.x.x"}

        Click the Save button to save these details.
      • Click View Trace Log link to view the ESA-client trace log. ESA-client Trace Log pop-up window is displayed. Click Close to close the ESA-client Trace Log window.
      • Click the Email Notification Settings link to configure or enable the email notifications.
      • To add contract inventory information, follow these steps:
        • Click Browse, then upload Contract_Inventory.xlsx or Contract_Inventory.csv file.
        • Click Upload to upload the contract inventory details.
        • Click Clear to clear the field.
      • Click Apply Configuration to ESA-client to apply the specified system's configuration and contract inventory details to the selected ESA-client. The node details are validated for the valid JSON format, duplicated nodes and password decryption upon clicking this button. It shows the following message in a prompt in case of any error on ESA-client.
        
        Alternatively, the node.properties file can also be validated in command-line by using the following script in /opt/ibm/esaclient/bin folder.

        verifyNodesPropertiesFile.sh

        It shows the following message upon running the script if there is any error.
        
      • Click Start ESA-client to start ESA-client. ESA-client then starts monitoring the remote systems that are configured, through SNMP traps and reports problems to ESA. ESA sends email notifications about the problems to the administrator team of MVS systems. The team validates the received problem information, and sends call home problems to IBM Support.