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Smart Call Home Quick Start Configuration Guide for
Catalyst® 6800 Series Switches
Smart Call Home offers proactive diagnostics and real-time alerts on select Cisco devices, which provides higher network availability and increased operational efficiency. Smart Call is a secure connected service of Cisco
SMARTnet™ for the Catalyst 6800.
This document provides information to configure and register a Catalyst 6800 for Smart Call Home u sing four
options. It is assumed that the device has the necessary DNS configuration (ip domain-name and ip nameserver for DNS look-ups or ip host for static entries) in order to resolve host-names that may appear in destination addresses.
1. HTTPS transport from the Catalyst 6800 to Cisco
2. Email transport from the Catalyst 6800 to Cisco
3. HTTP from the Catalyst 6800 to a Transport Gateway (TG) - HTTPS transport to Cisco
4. Email from the Catalyst 6800 to a Transport Gateway (TG) - HTTPS transport to Cisco
5. Call Home Configuration - HTTP with Single command
Note: For security reasons, Cisco recommends customers make use of one of the HTTPS transport options,
due to the additional payload encryption that HTTPS offers. The Transport Gateway software is downloadable from Cisco and is available for customers that require an aggregation point or a proxy for connection to the internet.
Requirements for Smart Call Home:
IOS version 15.1(2) SY1 is the minimum version required to support Call Home.
A CCO ID associated with an appropriate Cisco SMARTnet Service contract for your company.
Cisco SMARTnet Service for the device to be registered.
An image with cryptographic support is required to encrypt messages on the Catalyst 6800 for HTTPS
transport.
Resources for Smart Call Home:
Configure the HTTP Server section
Configuring Smart Call Home
Smart Call Home Support Forum
Smart Call Home Cisco.com
Smart Call Home User Guide
Smart Call Home Server Certificate for HTTPS
.
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Call Home Configuration - HTTPS to Cisco
The following is a sample configuration showing the minimum steps required to configure Call Home on a
Catalyst 6800 to communicate securely with the Smart Call Home System using HTTPS and a command to start
the registration process.
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.
Cat6800#configure terminal
Cat6800(config)#service call-home
2. Configure the mandatory contact email address -
Cat6800(config)#call-home
Cat6800(cfg-call-home)#contact-email-addr username@domain-name
3. Activate the default CiscoTAC-1 Profile and set the transport option to HTTP-
Cat6800(cfg-call-home)#profile CiscoTAC-1
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#active
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#destination transport-method http
4. Exit and Save the configuration -
Cat6800(config)#end
Cat6800#copy running-config startup-config
5. Send a Call Home Inventory message to start the registration process -
Cat6800#call-home send alert-group inventory profile CiscoTAC-1
Sending inventory info call-home message ...
6. Receive an email from Cisco and follow the link to complete registration for Smart Call home -
Please wait. This may take some time ...
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Call Home Configuration - Email to Cisco
The following is a sample configuration showing the minimum steps required to configure Call Home on a
Catalyst 6800 to communicate using email with the Smart Call Home System and a command to start the registration process.
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.
Cat6800#configure terminal
Cat6800(config)#service call-home
2. Configure the mandatory contact email address -
Cat6800(config)#call-home
Cat6800(cfg-call-home)#contact-email-addr username@domain-name
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.
Cat6800(cfg-call-home)#mail-server <address> priority <server_priority_number>
4. Activate the default CiscoTAC-1 Profile and set the transport option to Email -
Cat6800(cfg-call-home)#profile CiscoTAC-1
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#active
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#destination transport-method email
5. Exit and Save the configuration -
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#end
Cat6800#copy running-config startup-config
6. Send a Call Home Inventory message to start the registration process -
Cat6800#call-home send alert-group inventory profile CiscoTAC-1
Sending inventory info call-home message ...
Please wait. This may take some time ...
7. Receive an email from Cisco and follow the link to complete registration for Smart Call home -
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Call Home Configuration - HTTP to Transport Gateway and HTTPS to Cisco
The following is a sample configuration showing the minimum steps required to configure Call Home on a
Catalyst 6800 to use HTTP to send to a Transport Gateway (TG) and a command to start the registration process. The TG will use HTTPS to communicate with the Smart Call Home System. This assumes that the
Transport Gateway software has been installed, configured and registered with Smart Call Home.
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.
Cat6800#configure terminal
Cat6800(config)#service call-home
2. Configure the mandatory contact email address -
Cat6800(config)#call-home
Cat6800(cfg-call-home)#contact-email-addr username@domain-name
3. De-activate the default CiscoTAC-1 Profile if it is active -
Cat6800(cfg-call-home)#profile CiscoTAC-1
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#no active
4. Configure a user profile - The p rofile’s alert-group subscriptions will be similar to the default CiscoTAC-1
profile with the destination HTTP transport-method and with a destination HTTP address provided by the
Transport Gateway (Refer to Configure the HTTP Server section). Some versions of the IOS have a problem
parsing the URL if it contains an IP address followed by a port number (refer to bug CSCsv52025). The
work-around is to replace the IP address with the domain/ host name of the TG or use port 80 and remove
the port number from the URL.
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#profile Your_profile_name
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#active
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#destination transport-method http
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#destination address http http://url_from_TG
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group diagnostic severity minor
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group environment severity minor
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group syslog severity major pattern ".*"
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group configuration periodic monthly 23 15:00
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group inventory periodic monthly 23 15:00
5. Exit and Save the configuration -
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#end
Cat6800#copy running-config startup-config
6. Send a Call Home Inventory message to start the registration process -
Cat6800#call-home send alert-group inventory profile Your_profile_name
Sending inventory info call-home message ...
Please wait. This may take some time ...
7. Receive the email from Cisco and follow the link to complete registration for Smart Call home.
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Call Home Configuration - Email to Transport Gateway and HTTPS to Cisco
The following is a sample configuration showing the minimum steps required to configure Call Home on a
Catalyst 6800 to send Email to a Transport Gateway (TG) and a command to start the registration process. The
TG will use HTTPS to communicate with the Smart Call Home System. This assumes that the Transport Gate-
way software has been installed, configured and registered with Smart Call Home.
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.
Cat6800#configure terminal
Cat6800(config)#service call-home
2. Configure the mandatory contact email address -
Cat6800(config)#call-home
Cat6800(cfg-call-home)#contact-email-addr username@domain-name
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.
Cat6800(cfg-call-home)#mail-server <address> priority <server_priority_number>
4. De-activate the default CiscoTAC-1 Profile if it is active -
Cat6800(cfg-call-home)#profile CiscoTAC-1
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#no active
5. Configure a user profile - The p rofile’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.
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#profile Your_profile_name
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#active
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#destination transport-method email
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#destination address email account_for_TG@yourCompany.com
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group diagnostic severity minor
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group environment severity minor
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group syslog severity major pattern ".*"
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group configuration periodic monthly 23 15:00
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#subscribe-to-alert-group inventory periodic monthly 23 15:00
6. Exit and Save the configuration -
Cat6800(cfg-call-home-profile)#end
Cat6800#copy running-config startup-config
7. Send a Call Home Inventory message to start the registration process -
Cat6800#call-home send alert-group inventory profile Your_profile_name
Sending inventory info call-home message ...
Please wait. This may take some time ...
8. Receive the email from Cisco and follow the link to complete registration for Smart Call home.
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Call Home Configuration - HTTP with Single command
The following is a sample configuration that shows the single command that is required to configure Call Home on a Cisco
6800 Series Router so that it can communicate securely with the Smart Call Home System.
Enable Call Home - In global configuration mode enter the call-home reporting command, mentioning the contact email address, http proxy server and port number to activate the call-home feature so that it can use email
to communicate with the Smart Call Home System.
CSR1000V#configure terminal
CSR1000V(config)# call-home reporting contact-email-addr <username@domain-name> http-proxy
<proxy_server_name> port <port_number>
Downloading Cisco Transport Gateway Software
To download Cisco Transport Gateway software, go to the Download Software web page. On that page the Related Information section on the right lists the different OS versions (Linux, Solaris, Wind ows) of Transport
Gateway software. Find the correct OS version of Transport Gateway software in the list and then click either
Download Now or Add to cart.
After you have downloaded the correct OS version of Transport Gateway software, then refer to the Transport
Gateway Installation/ Configuration/ Registration sections of the Smart Call Hom e Users’ Guid e for information on how
to install the downloaded code then configure and register the Transport Gateway.
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