Dell Compellent: Network requirements to enable Dell SupportAssist Enterprise and Secure Console with Storage Center

Dell SupportAssist (previously known as Phone Home) provides Dell Support with system state information in order to triage and troubleshoot issues, with minimal user effort.

Historical information availability allows for far more detailed trendings and technical analysis.

This archival information allows Dell Support staff to analyze events leading up to an issue in order to help with performing root cause analysis.

​Storage Center SupportAssist includes:

• Weekly scheduled collection of Storage Center diagnostic logs and creation of hardware and software configuration tables
• SupportAssist detects faults and hardware failures and immediately alerts Dell Technical Support
• Software and firmware updates can be downloaded to the Storage Center without the need for outside tools

Detailed performance metrics directly from Dell Storage Manager

In order for the Dell SupportAssist features to communicate to the necessary web services located at Dell facilities, outbound TCP port 443 must be allowed from each Storage Center controller’s management IP address (eth0), the virtual management IP address, and the IP address of the Dell Storage Manager Data Collector server.

Secure Console allows a user to configure their Storage Center so that it establishes a secure SSH tunnel to Dell Support infrastructure.

Once the user creates this secure connection, Dell Support staff can connect to the Storage Center controllers and view system information in real time.

The user controls this connection, and Dell Support staff cannot initiate it.

SCOS versions prior to 6.6 use a static endpoint public IP address for Secure Console to connect to using outbound TCP port 22 (TCP port 8443 is not used).

The Hardware Serial Number (HSN) determines the IP address used by each Storage Center controller.

This static limitation was modified in SCOS version 6.6 and above by implementing a more dynamic approach to acquiring the SSH tunnel endpoint address.

In order for the Secure Console features of SCOS 6.6 and later to communicate to the necessary web services located onsite at Dell Support facilities, outbound TCP port 8443 must be allowed from each Storage Center controller management IP address (eth0) and the virtual management IP address.

The communication over TCP port 8443 is SSL-based and exists to negotiate SSH server endpoint assignment.

Once the negotiation is complete, each controller then communicates over outbound TCP port 22 to its assigned SSH server in order to create the SSH tunnel.

An SSH tunnel is established from each Storage Center controller to its assigned SSH endpoint until the Time to Live (TTL) value has expired.

The user configures the TTL value of each Secure Console session at the time of enabling Secure Console on the Storage Center.

Dell SupportAssist and Secure Console Firewall Rules for SCOS 6.6 and later:

Also see:

• Dell article 114471, Dell Storage SC - How to send SupportAssist and enable Secure Console
• Dell article 124875, SC Series Technical White Papers, and Videos

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