Pillar Axiom: HTTPS Call-Home Operations that Fail After Upgrading From Release 2.7 or 2.8

Asset ID:	1-72-1389647.1
Update Date:	2012-08-29
Keywords:

Solution Type Problem Resolution Sure

Solution 1389647.1 : Pillar Axiom: HTTPS Call-Home Operations that Fail After Upgrading From Release 2.7 or 2.8

Applies to:

Pillar Axiom 300 Storage System - Version Not Applicable and later
Pillar Axiom 500 Storage System - Version Not Applicable and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Symptoms

Call-Home (callhome and PerformSendSystemInformationToCallHomeServer) file transfers that use HTTPS or HTTPS with proxy fail on larger Call-Home bundles. The failure occurs approximately five or ten minutes after a background task begins the transfer, or five or ten minutes after transmission of an automatic Call-Home occurs.

This issue affects only systems running release 02.07.00 and higher.

Cause

A change was introduced in release 2.7.0 to prevent HTTPS Call-Home operations and transfers from hanging indefinitely. The change terminates the Call-Home or transfer attempt 300 seconds (five minutes) after the initial request to perform the Call-Home. The system performs a retry, however ,the second attempt is performed in cleartext (unencrypted) and the connection is not accepted by the Pillar Data Systems Call-Home server.

Solution

Release 02.08.01 sets the timeout for HTTPS transfers to 7200 seconds (two hours) before the data transfer fails.

IMPORTANT! Release 02.08.01 does not address all HTTP Call-Home issues. You may need to use tcpdump or traceroute on the Pilot to troubleshoot other Call-Home issues.
Additional Information

A secondary issue exists where the system may incorrectly indicate a successful completion to all types of proxy-based Call-Homes. This incorrect indication is typically returned within a minute or two; not enough time for a reasonably-sized Call-Home transfer to complete. Furthermore, it is difficult to verify this condition without searching for the file on the Call-Home server, however, you can diagnose the issue using tcpdump.

HTTP Call-Home is performed using web browser emulation. The Pillar Axiom system performs an HTTPS Post of Form Data operation to the same Call-Home server used for all transfers (callhome.support.pillardata.com: port 443). The form data is in the Call-Home file located in the /var/stage directory.

If a proxy is present, the Pillar Axiom system operates like a web browser configured to use a proxy. The system connects to the proxy using the appropriate port, and sends a Connect request to the proxy requesting a secure HTTP connection to the Call-Home server.

If the proxy is able to resolve that hostname and complete the connection, the Pillar Axiom system then sends its standard keys to the Call-Home server for authentication.

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