AutoSupport supports HTTPS, HTTP, and SMTP as the transport protocols for delivering AutoSupport messages to NetApp technical support. All of these protocols run on IPv4 or IPv6 based on the address family to which the name resolves. If you enable AutoSupport messages to your internal support organization, those messages are sent by SMTP.
Protocol availability varies with the destination of the AutoSupport messages:
| Protocol and port | Description |
|---|---|
| HTTPS on port 443 | This is the default protocol. You should use this whenever possible. The certificate from the remote server is validated against the root certificate, unless you disable validation. The delivery uses an HTTP PUT request. With PUT, if the request fails during transmission, the request restarts where it left off. If the server receiving the request does not support PUT, the delivery uses an HTTP POST request. |
| HTTP on port 80 | This protocol is preferred over SMTP. The delivery uses an HTTP PUT request. With PUT, if the request fails during transmission, the request restarts where it left off. If the server receiving the request does not support PUT, the delivery uses an HTTP POST request. |
| SMTP on port 25 | You should use this protocol only if the network connection does not allow HTTPS or HTTP, because SMTP can introduce limitations on message length and line length. |
For example, if you use the recommended protocol to send messages to NetApp technical support and you also want to send messages to your internal support organization, your messages would be transported using both HTTPS and SMTP, respectively.
AutoSupport limits the maximum file size for each protocol. The default setting for HTTP and HTTPS transfers is 10 MB. The default setting for SMTP transfers is 5 MB. If the size of the AutoSupport message exceeds the configured limit, AutoSupport delivers as much of the message as possible. You can edit the maximum size by modifying AutoSupport configuration. See the system node autosupport modify man page for more information.
The protocols require the following additional configuration:
If the proxy uses a port other than the default port, which is 3128, you can specify the port for that proxy. You can also specify a username and password for proxy authentication.
The storage system does not function as a mail server—it requires an external mail server at your site to send mail. The mail server must be a host that listens on the SMTP port (25), and it must be configured to send and receive 8-bit Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) encoding. Example mail hosts include a UNIX host running an SMTP server such as the sendmail program and a Windows NT server running the Microsoft Exchange server. You can have one or more mail hosts.
No matter what transport protocol you use, you can use IPv4 or IPv6 addresses based on the address family to which the name resolves.
