Health Usage Report (in Swarm 6.5.x and beyond)

WHY ARE THERE HEALTH USAGE (PHONE HOME) REPORTS?

1. To eliminate the days often required to get information in the event of a support case.

2. To allow DataCore to proactively spot problems before they cause customer-visible issues.

Each Swarm node, once every 6 hours (or every 24 hours in Swarm 9 and below), sends an HTTPS-encrypted settings and stats dump to a server at DataCore. Private information, such as SNMP passwords and domains, is not included in the information sent.  If the cluster was upgraded from pre-Swarm 10, the health report will still only be sent once per 24 hours as the setting is stored in the PSS until changed.  This can be modified by sending the following command from the CSN/SCS server to modify the period (in seconds).  The recommendation is to send every 6 hours as show below.

swarmctl -C support.reportPeriod -V 21600 -d SWARM-NODE-IP -p admin:ADMINPASSWORD

The exact data being sent can be viewed by collecting the health reports locally:  

swarmctl -Q healthreport -a -x -d SWARM-NODE-IP -p admin:ADMINPASSWORD

More information on swarmctl, along with other support bundle tools, is here.

WHERE ARE THE REPORTS SENT?

prior to version 15.1+ of Swarm

https://healthreport.caringo.com or https://64.129.59.139

post version 15.1

https://swarm.phonehome.datacore.com or https://64.129.59.139

Network administrator: On the corporate firewall, open port 443 to 64.129.59.139.

IS IT ORCHESTRATED BY CSN/SCS? IS CSN/SCS REQUIRED?

The CSN/SCS is not required. The Swarm nodes send the reports directly to DataCore.

Note: In a dual-homed CSN/SCS-controlled configuration, the CSN/SCS acts as a router; by default, it will route traffic from the Swarm VLAN to the client VLAN.

WHAT IF I DO NOT WANT TO SEND ANY?

That is your privilege; however, health usage reports have proved very useful in technical support situations. DataCore Support can provide priority to clients providing these reports since personnel have much of the information (excepting logs) needed to assist.

WHAT IF NODES CANNOT REACH DATACORE?

Swarm will silently fail if the nodes cannot reach DataCore which does not cause problems.

Using a Proxy Server

A proxy server that can route out to the internet can be used to send the packets. A proxy server such as squid can be installed as below:

Follow the instructions here to install squid: http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-rhel-centos-fedora-squid-installation-configuration.html

Squid runs on port 3128 by default:

Add the following parameter to the Swarm cluster configuration file if the proxy server IP is 192.168.1.47:

^{support.proxyUri = http://192.168.1.47:3128}

A restart of the cluster is needed to activate this change.

Providing Access to the License File

Swarm nodes attempt to reach the license file using the proxy server if the proxyUri parameter is configured. Ensure it is reachable using that route. Optionally, add the license server to the list in SUPPORT.NOPROXY. This configuration variable was introduced in Swarm 8 and must be set using SNMP:

The support.noProxy value should only contain the actual IP addresses or domain names and/or wildcards. It should not contain ports or protocols (http/s).

The below examples are incorrect: