SMPE internet retrieval gives connection failed

Products

• COMMON SERVICES FOR Z/OS
• 90S SERVICES
• Common Services

Issue/Introduction

When getting a 'Connection failed' message at the SMPE Internet retrieval to get the latest maintenance downloaded and possibly received in your product CSI, it can have multiple causes and possible solutions...

Most of the time it is a connection issue with our servers because of firewall/proxy settings... 

How can you trace an debug the connection and what are the possible solutions.

Environment

Release : 15.0

Component : CCS390 - COMMON SERVICES FOR Z/OS

Resolution

The first thing to do is to check the Network configuration as defined in the Mainframe Common Maintenance Procedures

If this doesn't solve the issue, then add these 2 statements to the SMPE Receive order job :

-Djava.security.debug
-Djavax.net.debug

Like this :

<CLIENT                                                      
  downloadmethod="https"                                     
  javahome="/C/java/java64bt/v8r0m0/usr/lpp/java/current java release"   
  classpath="/usr/lpp/smp/classes"                           
  javadebugoptions="-Dcom.ibm.smp.debug=severe -showversion  
                                  -Djava.security.debug                    
                                  -Djavax.net.debug">                      
</CLIENT>                                                    

If that doesn't show the error, it's possible there is still an issue with the firewall/proxy server settings and it's possible to add an additional HTTP Proxy statement.. 
Like this:

<CLIENT                                                    

  downloadmethod="https">                                   

  <HTTPPROXY host="<your proxy server host name>" port="####">  

 </HTTPPROXY>                                                

</CLIENT>