An HMC can be configured as a call home server (see HMC with direct Internet Connection and HMC without direct Internet Connection (with SSL proxy)), but this does not mean that the HMC itself also carries out a call home in the event of problems. In order for a call home to IBM to be started from an HMC in the event of an error, call home must be enabled for the HMC and there must also be an accessible call home server, which then forwards the call home message to IBM support.

Whether call home is activated for an HMC itself and whether a call home server is available can be displayed with the command “hmc lscallhome”:

$ hmc lscallhome
            CALLHOME       INTERNET  SSL    
HMC      STATE     SERVER  CONN      PROXY  PROTOCOL  SERVER_NAMES
hmc01    Enabled   1       1         0      ipv4      hmc01
hmc02    Disabled  1       1         1      ipv4      hmc02
$

The second column (CALLHOME STATE) indicates whether call home for the HMC is activated (Enabled) or deactivated (Disabled). The last column (SERVER_NAMES) lists all call home servers available for the HMC. In the example output, call home is enabled for hmc01 and disabled for hmc02. For both HMCs, only the respective HMC itself is listed as an available call home server.

To enable call home for an HMC, the command “hmc enablecallhome” can be used:

$ hmc enablecallhome hmc02
$

Calling “hmc lscallhome” again shows that call home is now also enabled for hmc02:

$ hmc lscallhome
            CALLHOME      INTERNET  SSL    
HMC      STATE    SERVER  CONN      PROXY  PROTOCOL  SERVER_NAMES
hmc01    Enabled  1       1         0      ipv4      hmc01
hmc02    Enabled  1       1         1      ipv4      hmc02
$

Problems on the HMC hmc02 will now be reported to IBM Support via call home.

Note: If call home is enabled and there is no available call home server, of course no call home can take place.

If call home is not desired for an HMC, e.g. temporarily during maintenance work, the call home functionality can be deactivated using “hmc disablecallhome”:

$ hmc disablecallhome hmc02
$

However, once the maintenance work has been completed, Call Home should be activated again!