Veritas Flex Appliance Getting Started and Administration Guide

The following list contains the notes and the known issues that apply for the Flex Appliance 2.0 software:

• The upgrade to version 2.0 requires at least 100 GB of free storage space. Before you begin, check your storage allocations and resize your instance storage if necessary to make sure you have enough space.

• If you select and then deselect an instance in the Application instances section, the instance operation buttons remain enabled. If you click on any of these operations when no instance is selected, the operation runs on the most recently selected instance.

• When you add a file to the repository, the memory usage of the appliance infrastructure service increases from 100 MB to 10 GB. If your appliance has high memory usage, you can restart the infrastructure service instance to reset the memory usage to 100 MB. Use the following steps:

  • If you have a multi-node appliance, run the show appliance status command and locate the infra_svc service in the output. Note the hostname of the node that the instance is running on.

  • Run the following commands to stop and start the infra_svc service:

    set appliance offline service_group=infra_svc node_name=<node hostname>

    set appliance online service_group=infra_svc node_name=<node hostname>

• VMware SAN backups over Fibre Channel may fail when the datastore is on an LSI storage array that is configured in active/passive (A/P) mode. The backup jobs that use SAN transport mode fail with the following error:

  "Error opening the snapshot disks using given transport mode: Status 23"

  If you see this error, configure the LSI storage in Asymmetric Logical Access Unit (ALUA) mode by following the procedure from the storage vendor. The procedure may involve upgrading the storage array firmware to a version that supports ALUA mode, and unmapping and remapping the LSI storage LUNs to the Flex appliance. After the LSI storage LUNs have been remapped, rescan the associated Fibre Channel ports from the Fibre Channel interfaces page on the Flex Appliance Console. Then retry the VMware SAN backup.

  If you need assistance with this issue, contact Veritas Technical Support and ask your representative to reference article 100048704.

• During a rollback after an instance upgrade, the Activity Monitor may erroneously show Clear state tasks with the following error message:

  "Failed to clear the fault on <instance_ID>_<version>_appVols on <node_name>. Check /log/nodeworker/worker.log and VCS logs for more details."

  If you see this error during a rollback, it can be safely ignored. Continue to monitor the task to make sure that the rollback completes successfully.

• When you install application add-ons on an instance, the Flex Appliance Console lets you select different versions of the same OST plug-in. However, this configuration is not supported, and if you select more than one version of the same plug-in, the Apply add-ons page shows duplicate entries. Only install one version of each OST plug-in on an instance. If you need to change the version of an OST plug-in that is already installed, first uninstall it, and then install the new version.

• Depending on the current activity of your application instances, the System topology page may take up to a few minutes to load completely. If your application instances do not display when you sign in, wait a few minutes and check again.

• After a warning message displays to let you know that your password is about to expire, you can no longer sign out of the Flex Appliance Console because an "invalid token" error occurs. In addition, if you refresh the page, you are redirected to the sign-in page. To avoid this issue, change your password as soon as the warning message displays.

• If you upgrade an application instance that has an OpenStorage (OST) plug-in installed on it, you must reinstall the plug-in after the upgrade is committed successfully.

• In certain scenarios, the Fibre Channel page may briefly appear in the Flex Appliance Console on the Veritas 5150 Appliance. Fibre Channel is not currently supported on the 5150 appliance. If you see the page appear and it does not go away on its own, clear cookies on your browser, then sign out and sign back in.

• When you power cycle or restart a Veritas 5150 Appliance, the Flex Appliance Shell becomes available when the restart is complete. The Flex Appliance Console requires an additional three minutes before you can try to sign in.

• After you upgrade an appliance to this release or configure a new appliance with this release, the system hardware-errors command may show that the RAID Information and the Disk Information are Not Found. If you experience this issue, wait more than 24 hours and try again. The information should display correctly.

• If Fibre Channel devices are connected to the appliance but you do not have any application instances, "Abort command" messages display in the /var/log/messages log. The messages are similar to the following:

  Oct 8 11:13:56 <hostname> kernel: qla2xxx [0000:af:00.0]-8804:9: Abort command mbx success cmd=ffff890ecc0a47c0.

  If you see these messages, they can be ignored. After you create an application instance and assign the Fibre Channel ports, they should no longer display.

• When you add a file to the repository on the Flex Appliance Console, a delay occurs after the progress bar completes before you are redirected to the Activity Monitor. Wait to be redirected, and then you can monitor the status of the task.

• When you add a large file to the repository, the following issues can occur:

  • If the upload takes longer than 15 minutes due to slow internet speeds, the upload may fail. If you experience this issue, improve your network connection and try again. If the issue persists, you can contact Veritas Technical Support to have a representative manually copy the file to the appliance repository. Ask your representative to reference article 100048789.

  • A "Failed to unmarshal JSON" error message may appear when you sign in to the Flex Appliance Console after the upload. If you experience this issue, close the current tab and open the console in a new window or tab.

• If you upgrade both nodes of a multi-node appliance and then roll back one of them, the Flex Appliance Console still shows the upgraded version on both nodes. The console does not show the correct version until you roll back the second node.

• If the host0 or host1 port is not connected to the appliance node during initial configuration, the following error message appears that does not provide complete information:

  "Network card for <interface name> is missing. Make sure that all network interfaces are connected to the appliance."

  If you encounter this message, verify that all ports are connected according to the initial configuration guidelines. See Initial configuration guidelines and checklist. Then restart the node to continue the configuration.

• When you create a new application instance, the Application instances section of the System topology page may show the instance status as Partially Deleted while the creation is in progress. The Partially Deleted status displays in error and can be safely ignored. You can track the instance creation progress from the Activity Monitor, and the instance status changes to Online when the instance creation has completed successfully.

• If you have a tenant whose name or location contains special characters when you upgrade to this release, tenant operations fail after the upgrade. To resolve this issue, edit the tenant name and location so that they do not have special characters.

• If you change the timezone from the Flex Appliance Shell, the following message displays:

  You can make this change permanent for yourself by appending the line TZ='<timezone>'; export TZ to the file '.profile' in your home directory; then log out and log in again.

  Here is that TZ value again, this time on standard output so that you can use the /usr/bin/tzselect command in shell scripts:

  This message displays in error. You do not need to perform any additional steps to make the timezone change permanent.

• If an appliance node is powered off unexpectedly and then turned back on, an issue can occur that causes the Flex Appliance Console and all application instances to stop working. The Flex Appliance Shell displays the following error when you attempt to log in:

  Installation status: failed

  If you encounter this issue, contact Veritas Technical Support for assistance. Ask your representative to reference article 100046737.

• If you upgrade an instance that supports rollback, the rollback may lead to inconsistencies between the NetBackup catalog and the media servers for all jobs that ran after the upgrade. These inconsistencies can affect future backups.

  See Warnings and considerations for instance rollbacks.

• The following error message may display in the Flex Appliance Shell during an upgrade or a factory reset:

  dracut:Failed to install module bnx2

  This message displays in error and can be safely disregarded.

• If you attempt to upgrade Flex Appliance to this release when an instance operation is in progress or pending, the upgrade precheck fails with the following incorrect error message:

  "Error: VUF failed to install package."

  If you see this message, check the status of all instance operations and wait until they are complete before you try again. If an instance upgrade is pending, you must commit or roll back that upgrade before you can upgrade the appliance.

• If you upgrade a node and elect not to restart it when prompted, the node must be restarted with the 'restart' command to complete the upgrade. If the node is restarted incorrectly due to a power outage, pressing the power button, or a similar scenario, the remaining upgrade steps fail.

  If you encounter this issue, roll back the node to the previous version and then re-run the upgrade.

• If you have a multi-node appliance and one of the nodes is turned off for any reason, do not restart the other node until they are both online. If a node is restarted while the other node is off, the Flex Appliance Console fails to load.

  If you encounter this scenario, contact Veritas Technical Support and ask your representative to reference article 100046118.

• When you create an instance, if you enter the IP address before you select a network interface, the IP address field displays the following error message:

  "IP address does not belong to the selected network's netmask."

  This message still displays after you select the network interface that corresponds to the IP address. To clear the message, click inside the IP address field and then click or tab outside of it.

• After some operations in the Flex Appliance Shell, an "Operation successfully" message may display even if a failure occurred. Read all of the messages that display at the end of each task to make sure that no further action is required.

• If you use the set alerts email-hardware or set alerts email-software command to add an email address for Call Home, you may see an error message similar to the following:

  [Error] The appliance was able to connect to your SMTP server, but either we were not able to authenticate properly, or your SMTP server is preventing us from sending emails through it. Please check your SMTP server for details.

  V-475-2-1006 : Added email example@veritas.com not usable with SMTP server.

  However, the messages also states that the address was added successfully, as follows:

  Email address(es) added successfully 1. example@veritas.com

  If you encounter this message, the email address was added to the appliance successfully, but the test email did not go through. Verify the email address, Sender ID, and SMTP password that you entered on the appliance. If they are all correct, check the settings on your SMTP server.

• It is not currently possible to edit a network bond after it has been created. If you need to edit a bond, you must delete it and then create a new bond with the new settings.

  See Deleting a network bond.

  See Creating a network bond.

• If the VLAN tags do not match between the nodes of a multi-node appliance, the following error appears when you attempt to relocate an instance:

  Failed to clear the fault on <network_interface> on <node_hostname>. Check /log/hostagent.log and VCS logs for more details.

  However, these logs do not include any additional details. If you encounter this issue, check the VLAN tags on the appliance from the Settings > Network page. Verify that all of the VLAN tags have been added on both nodes.

• If you run any of the system hardware-health commands in the Flex Appliance Shell immediately after starting or restarting the appliance, you may see the following error message:

  Unable to retrieve hardware information.
  

  If you see this error, wait a few minutes and try again. This issue also applies during initial configuration, after you run the setup configure-network command.