Call Home Installation and Configuration

There are several types of Call Home configurations you can use on a Cisco device. This chapter shows three basic different configurations; the configurations are Call Home configurations to:

•HTTPS

•Email to Smart Call Home

•Email to Transport Gateway and HTTPS to Cisco

The last section of this chapter explains the security considerations for configuring Smart Call Home when not using a Transport Gateway

Call Home Configuration - HTTPS

The following is a sample configuration showing the minimum steps required to configure Call Home on a Cisco device to communicate securely with the Smart Call Home System using HTTPS and a command to start the registration process. All the following commands are displayed in red.

Step 1 Enable Call Home - In global configuration mode enter the service call-home command to activate the call-home feature and enter the call-home configuration command to enter call-home configuration mode. 

Hostname#configure terminal

Hostname(config)#service call-home

Hostname(config)#call-home

Step 2 Configure the mandatory contact email address - 

Hostname(cfg-call-home)#contact-email-addr username@domain-name

Step 3 Activate the default CiscoTAC-1 Profile and set the transport option to HTTP - 

Hostname(cfg-call-home)#profile CiscoTAC-1

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#active

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#destination transport-method http

Step 4 Install a security certificate - Obtain the Cisco server certificate from the Security Certificate in Chapter 6.

Step 5 Configure a trust-point and prepare to enroll the certificate via the terminal using copy and paste when prompted. 

Hostname(config)#crypto pki trustpoint cisco

Hostname(ca-trustpoint)#enroll terminal

Hostname(ca-trustpoint)#crypto pki authenticate cisco


Enter the base 64 encoded CA certificate.

End with a blank line or the word "quit" on a line by itself

[paste the certificate here and accept it] 


% Do you accept this certificate? [yes/no]: yes

Trustpoint CA certificate accepted.

% Certificate successfully imported

Step 6 Exit and Save the configuration - 

Hostname(config-cert-chain)#end

Hostname#copy running-config startup-config

Step 7 Send a Call Home Inventory message to start the registration process - 

Hostname#call-home send alert-group inventory

Sending inventory info call-home message ...

Please wait. This may take some time ...

Call-home message is sent.

Step 8 Receive an email from Cisco and follow the link to complete registration for Smart Call home.

For information about troubleshooting HTTP destination errors see Call Home Configuration - HTTPS.

Transmission of Call Home Messages Using a Transport Gateway

Two methods may be utilized to send messages to a Transport Gateway. One method is for the call-home message sender to utilize the HTTP server option on the Transport Gateway. The second method is for the call-home message sender to send email to an email account that would be read by the built-in email client on the Transport Gateway.

Note All IOS versions and Nexus OS versions starting from 4.1(3) for the MDS 9000 and Nexus 7000 products support the HTTP transport option. SAN-OS and Nexus OS for the Nexus 5000 products only support the email option.

The following diagram illustrates the two methods for sending call-home messages to a Transport Gateway.

Step 1 The customer device sends Call Home messages to either the http server or to the Email server that the customer has set up an email client account.

Step 2 If sent to an email account, the Transport Gateway requests the email from the email server and receives the messages.

Step 3 All Call Home messages, whether sent using the http or email, are temporarily stored in a message storage location, also referred to as the Call Home mail storage area. The messages stay in Call Home mail storage until they are sent either manually or automatically.

Step 4 Call Home messages are sent through the CH message dispatcher securely over the internet to the Cisco Back End.

Note During Transport Gateway configuration if the Send Call Home messages check box is checked, then messages are sent automatically to the Cisco Backend; otherwise the messages are kept in the Call Home mail storage until manually sent.

During Transport Gateway configuration you can also specify the size of the Call Home mail storage (mail store) area.The size indicates when the mail storage is getting full and an email notification is sent.

The Call Home messages are sent securely across the internet to the Cisco Back End, where they are processed further.

Call Home Configuration - Call Home Messages to Transport Gateway / HTTPS to Cisco

The following is a sample configuration showing the minimum steps required to configure Call Home on a Cisco device to communicate via a Transport Gateway with the Smart Call Home System using HTTPS and a command to start the registration process. All the following commands are displayed in red.

Step 1 Enable Call Home - In global configuration mode enter the service call-home command to activate the call-home feature and enter the call-home configuration command to enter call-home configuration mode.

Hostname#configure terminal

Hostname(config)#service call-home

Hostname(config)#call-home

Step 2 Configure the mandatory contact email address - 

Hostname(cfg-call-home)#contact-email-addr username@domain-name

Step 3 Configure the mandatory email server information - The mail-server address is an IP address or domain-name of a SMTP server that Call Home will send email messages to. 

Hostname(cfg-call-home)#mail-server <address> priority 
<server_priority_number>

Step 4 De-activate the default CiscoTAC-1 Profile - 

Hostname(cfg-call-home)#profile CiscoTAC-1

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#no active

Step 5 Configure a user profile - The profile's alert-group subscriptions will be similar to the default CiscoTAC-1 profile with the destination email transport-method and with a destination email address which is for the email account used by the Transport Gateway. 

Hostname(cfg-call-home)#profile Your_profile_name

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#active

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#destination transport-method email

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#destination address email 
account_for_TG@yourCompany.com

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group diagnostic 
severity minor 

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group environment 
severity minor 

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group syslog 
severity major pattern ".*"

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group configuration 
periodic monthly 23 15:00

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group inventory 
periodic monthly 23 15:00

Step 6 Exit and Save the configuration - 

Hostname(config-cert-chain)#end

Hostname#copy running-config startup-config

Step 7 Download the Transport Gateway, Configure and Register it for Smart Call Home - Refer to the Smart Call Home Users' Guide for further information on configuring the Transport Gateway

Step 8 Send a Call Home Inventory message to start the registration process - 

Hostname#call-home send alert-group inventory

Sending inventory info call-home message ...

Please wait. This may take some time ...

Call-home message is sent.

Step 9 Receive the email from Cisco and follow the link to complete registration for Smart Call home -

Call Home Configuration - Email to Smart Call Home

The following is a sample configuration showing the minimum steps required to configure Call Home on a Cisco device to communicate using email with the Smart Call Home System and a command to start the registration process. All the following commands are displayed in red.

Step 1 Enable Call Home - In global configuration mode enter the service call-home command to activate the call-home feature and enter the call-home configuration command to enter call-home configuration mode. 

Hostname#configure terminal

Hostname(config)#service call-home

Hostname(config)#call-home

Step 2 Configure the mandatory contact email address - 

Hostname(cfg-call-home)#contact-email-addr username@domain-name

Step 3 Configure the mandatory email server information - The mail-server address is an IP address or domain-name of a SMTP server that Call Home will send email messages to. If more than one mail-server address is configured for redundancy the mail-server priority is used to determine which server is the active primary server. Call Home will send messages to the active server with the lowest priority number. 

Hostname(cfg-call-home)#mail-server <address> priority 
<server_priority_number>

Step 4 Activate the default CiscoTAC-1 Profile and set the transport option to Email- 

Hostname(cfg-call-home)#profile CiscoTAC-1

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#active

Hostname(cfg-call-home-profile)#destination transport-method email

Step 5 Exit and Save the configuration - 

Hostname(config-cert-chain)#end

Hostname#copy running-config startup-config

Step 6 Send a Call Home Inventory message to start the registration process - 

Hostname#call-home send alert-group inventory

Sending inventory info call-home message ...

Please wait. This may take some time ...

Call-home message is sent.

Step 7 Receive an email from Cisco and follow the link to complete registration for Smart Call home -

Security Considerations For Call Home Configuration

This section covers the following areas:

•Configuring Call Home When Not Using the Transport Gateway.

•Message Types & CLI Content Per Platform.

•Using AAA on the Cisco Device.

Configuring Call Home When Not Using the Transport Gateway

When not using the Transport Gateway follow the instructions listed below:

•The Cisco device regardless of the protocol (HTTP/SMTP/HTTPS), always scrubs sensitive information such as passwords and SNMP Community strings in the configuration before sending it over the wire.

•SMTP is not a secure protocol and hence is not the recommended method for sending Smart Call Home messages to the back-end server. The preferred mechanism is HTTPS, which is the default.

•The certificate of the Certification Authority must be installed on the Cisco device, before HTTPS communication with the back-end server can occur.

Note The Cisco server certificate used by Smart Call home needs to be installed on your Cisco device, even if you are already using HTTPS and have a server certificate installed; you need to install the server certificate for Smart Call Home. The Security Certificate is available at the end of this User Guide.

The Security Certificate is installed using the crypto pki authenticate command. The sequence of commands used to install the CA certificate on the Cisco device is given below. 

Hostname(config)#crypto pki trustpoint cisco

Hostname(ca-trustpoint)#enroll terminal

Hostname(ca-trustpoint)#crypto pki authenticate cisco

Note Enter the base 64 encoded CA certificate.
End with a blank line or the word "quit" on a line by itself
Paste the certificate here and accept it 

% Do you accept this certificate? [yes/no]: yes

Trustpoint CA certificate accepted.

% Certificate successfully imported

•Depending on the configuration deployed by the customer, the protocols and ports defined in Table 2-1 need to be allowed on the firewall between the stated source and destination. In a typical configuration where the Cisco devices are installed on the internal network, this communication will be seamless without a need for a configuration change on the firewall as the traffic will flow from the Cisco device on the high-security internal network zone to the Internet on the low-security zone.

Table 2-1 Protocols and Ports without the Transport Gateway

Source
Destination
Protocol
Port
Purpose

Cisco Device

Cisco's back-end server

HTTPS

443

Device to send SCH messages to the back-end server - Option 1

Cisco Device

Customer's email server en route to Cisco's back-end server

SMTP

25

Device to send SCH messages to the back-end server - Option 2

Cisco Device

Customer's Local web server for Customer to process and initiate action

HTTP

80

Device to send SCH messages to the customer server

Message Types & CLI Content Per Platform

This section provides information on the message types that are sent by the Call-home feature.

Table 2-2

D = NX-7000 Switch
O = NX-5000 Switch
M = MDS 9000 (4.x)

R = Cisco7600 Router

S = Standalone Catalyst 6500

V = Catalyst 6500 VSS


Table 2-3 shows the CLI data sent with call-home messages by type and by the platform supported.

Note RMON alerts from an MDS 9000 are sent in diagnostic messages which do not contain any CLI.

Table 2-3

CLI COMMAND
CFG
ENV
DIAG
INV
SYS LOG
TEST

remote command switch show version

R S V

 

R S V

R S V

 

R S V

show buffers

   

R S V

     

show diagbus

     

R S V

   

show diagnostic result module all

   

D O R S

     

show diagnostic result module x detail

   

D R S

     

show diagnostic result switch all

   

V

     

show diagnostic result switch x module x detail

   

V

     

show environment

 

DMORSV

 

O

   

show hardware

   

D M

D M

   

show idprom all

     

R S

   

show idprom switch all

     

V

   

show install running (ION only)

S V

 

S V

S V

 

S V

show interface transceiver

     

O

O

O

show inventory

RSV

RSV

RSV

DMORSV

ORSV

ORSV

show license usage

     

DMO

DMO

O

show logging

 

DRSV

RSV

 

DRSV

 

show logging last 1000

 

O

       

show logging logfile | tail -n 200

 

M

   

M

 

show logging system last 100

   

RSV

     

show module

DMORS

DMORS

DMORS

DMORS

O

DMORS

show module switch all

V

V

V

V

 

V

show power

 

RS

       

show power switch all

 

V

       

show running-config

M

         

show running-config all

ORSV

         

show running-config vdc-all all

D

         

show snmp user

 

M

   

M

 

show sprom all

   

DM

DMO

O

O

show startup-config

MORSV

         

show startup-config vdc-all

D

         

show switch virtual

V

 

V

V

   

show system uptime

     

DMO

O

O

show tech-support ethpm

   

D

     

show tech-support GOLD

   

D

     

show tech-support platform

   

DM

     

show tech-support platform callhome

 

O

O

     

show tech-support sysmgr

   

DM

     

show vdc current-vdc

D

D

D

D

D

D

show vdc membership

D

D

D

D

D

D

show version

DMORSV

DMO

DMORSV

DMORSV

O

DMORSV

show module

 

S

S

S

 

S

show module switch all

V

V

V

V

 

V

show running-config all

SV

SV

SV

SV

 

SV

show tech

       

SV

 

show version

SV

SV

SV

SV

 

SV


Using AAA on the Cisco Device

If AAA is configured on the Cisco device then a user account with username = callhome must be configured on the AAA server. The password options for the account may be defined by the server administrator.

The commands listed in Table 2-3 need to be authorized on the Call Home device so that the Call Home service can be authorized to issue these commands. Authorize only those commands that are appropriate for the type device in your network.