Call home monitors for PTF updates

IBM Storage Scale provides temporary fixes to its code in between planned releases. The temporary fixes to the codes are called Program Temporary Fix (PTF).

Types of PTF monitors

The call home function has the following two monitors that provide PTF information to a user:

Callhome Update Request

The Callhome Update Request monitor is scheduled to run only once a day and exclusively on the first call home master node of a cluster. The monitor requests the PTF update information from the eSupport server.

The monitor output list contains information about the PTF versions that are available for the IBM Storage Scale version that is installed on the master node. The PTF information is stored in the Cluster Configuration Repository (CCR) to make it available to all other cluster nodes.

The following events show up during the run time of the Callhome Update Request monitor:

callhome_ptfupdates_ok: Informs the user that the PTF update check is processed without any errors.
callhome_ptfupdates_disabled: Informs the user that the call home function is disabled, or the monitor is disabled through configuration.
callhome_ptfupdates_ccr_failed: Informs the user that an error occurred, and the update information cannot be written to the CCR.
callhome_ptfupdates_failed: Informs the user about a connectivity error when a PTF update information is requested from the eSupport server.
callhome_ptfupdates_noop: Informs the user that an event is raised on a call home master node that is not the first node in the list.
Note: When the first call home master node disappears, the next call home master node in the list automatically takes over the master role.

PTF Updates Check

The PTF Updates Check monitor is scheduled to run only once a day on all call home child nodes, including the master nodes of the cluster. The monitor reads the update information from the CCR and compares it against the IBM Storage Scale version that is installed on the local node. When an appropriate PTF update is found in the information during this check, a system health tip is raised to inform the system administrator about the software update that can be installed.

Note: The software update packages can be downloaded from the Fix Central. However, the software update package download is not done automatically.

The following events show up during the runtime of the PTF Updates Check monitor:

scale_up_to_date: Informs the user that the installed packages are up to date. No new PTF packages are available.
scale_updatecheck_disabled: Informs the user that either the call home function or the PTF monitor is disabled by setting the value of scale_updatecheck_disabled as true.
scale_ptf_update_available: Informs the user that the PTF updates are available for the current node.

Important:

The call home PTF update notification function can be disabled by changing the configuration value of the mmhealthPtfUpdatesMonitorEnabled to no. The mmhealthPtfUpdatesMonitorEnabled value can be set by using the following mmchconfig command.

mmchconfig mmhealthPtfUpdatesMonitorEnabled=no

Limitations of PTF monitors

The PTF monitors display the following limitations:

The two PTF monitors consider only the PTF updates for the major version that is installed on the first call home master node. Other versions that might be installed on the other cluster nodes are not considered.
The PTF monitors consider only the system architecture of the first call home master node.
The PTF software update process does not run automatically. You must download the applicable PTF updates from the Fix Central before running them.