Veritas Flex Appliance Getting Started and Administration Guide

Last Published:
Product(s): Appliances (3.3, 3.2, 3.1, 3.0)
Platform: Flex Appliance OS
  1. Product overview
    1.  
      Introduction to Veritas Flex Appliance
    2.  
      Flex Appliance terminology
    3.  
      About the Flex Appliance documentation
  2. Release notes
    1.  
      Flex Appliance 3.0 new features, enhancements, and changes
    2.  
      Flex Appliance 3.1 new features, enhancements, and changes
    3.  
      Flex Appliance 3.2 new features, enhancements, and changes
    4.  
      Flex Appliance 3.3 new features, enhancements, and changes
    5.  
      Supported upgrade and update paths to this release
    6.  
      Operational notes
    7.  
      Flex Appliance 3.0 release content
    8.  
      Flex Appliance 3.1 release content
    9.  
      Flex Appliance 3.2 release content
    10.  
      Flex Appliance 3.3 release content
  3. Getting started
    1.  
      Initial configuration guidelines and checklist
    2.  
      Performing the initial configuration
    3.  
      Adding a node
    4.  
      Accessing and using the Flex Appliance Shell
    5.  
      Accessing and using the Flex Appliance Console
    6.  
      Managing the appliance from the Appliance Management Console
    7.  
      Setting the date and time for appliance nodes
    8.  
      Common tasks in Flex Appliance
  4. Managing network settings
    1.  
      Creating a network bond
    2.  
      Editing a network bond
    3.  
      Deleting a network bond
    4.  
      Configuring or editing a network interface
    5. Managing the appliance Fibre Channel ports
      1.  
        Viewing the devices that are connected to the Fibre Channel ports
    6.  
      Changing DNS or Hosts file settings
  5. Managing users
    1.  
      Overview of the Flex Appliance default users
    2. Managing Flex Appliance Console users and tenants
      1.  
        Adding a tenant
      2.  
        Editing a tenant
      3.  
        Removing a tenant
      4.  
        Adding a local user to the Flex Appliance Console
      5.  
        Connecting a remote user domain to the Flex Appliance Console
      6.  
        Editing a remote user domain in the Flex Appliance Console
      7.  
        Importing a remote user or user group to the Flex Appliance Console
      8.  
        Managing single sign-on (SSO)
      9.  
        Managing identity providers (IDPs)
      10.  
        Importing a single sign-on user or user group to the Flex Appliance Console
      11.  
        Managing user authentication with smart cards or digital certificates
      12.  
        Changing a local user password in the Flex Appliance Console
      13.  
        Expiring local user passwords in the Flex Appliance Console
      14.  
        Unlocking a local user account in the Flex Appliance Console
      15.  
        Removing users from the Flex Appliance Console
    3.  
      Changing the password policy
    4.  
      Changing the hostadmin user password in the Flex Appliance Shell
    5.  
      Changing the sysadmin user password in the Veritas Remote Management Interface
  6. Using Flex Appliance
    1. Managing the repository
      1.  
        Adding files to the repository
      2.  
        Removing files from the repository
    2.  
      Creating application instances
    3.  
      Managing application instances from Flex Appliance and NetBackup
    4. Managing application instances from Flex Appliance
      1.  
        Resizing instance storage
      2.  
        Editing instance network settings
      3.  
        Assigning Fibre Channel ports to an instance
      4.  
        Unassigning Fibre Channel ports from an instance
      5. Managing application add-ons on instances
        1.  
          Installing application add-ons
        2.  
          Uninstalling application add-ons
        3.  
          Changing the application add-on installation order
      6.  
        Viewing instance performance metrics
      7.  
        Clearing a configuration error status on an application instance
    5. Upgrading application instances
      1.  
        Warnings and considerations for instance rollbacks
    6.  
      Updating an application instance to a newer revision
    7. About Flex Appliance updates
      1.  
        Updating Flex Appliance
      2.  
        Updating the firmware
  7. Appliance security
    1.  
      Security overview
    2. About lockdown mode
      1.  
        Changing the lockdown mode
    3.  
      Using a sign-in banner
    4.  
      Using an external certificate
    5. Using network access control
      1.  
        Changing the SSH port
  8. Monitoring the appliance
    1.  
      Registering an appliance
    2. Configuring alerts
      1. About AutoSupport and Call Home
        1.  
          Configuring Call Home
      2.  
        Configuring email alerts
      3.  
        Configuring SNMP alerts
      4.  
        Setting the threshold values for disk usage alerts
    3.  
      Monitoring the appliance from the System Health Insights portal
    4. Viewing the hardware status
      1.  
        Viewing node information
      2.  
        Viewing storage shelf information on a Veritas 53xx Appliance
      3.  
        Viewing storage shelf information on a Veritas 52xx Appliance
    5.  
      Viewing hardware faults
    6.  
      Viewing system data
    7.  
      Clearing the hardware status
    8.  
      Forwarding logs
    9.  
      Providing access for external monitoring
    10.  
      Revoking access for external monitoring
  9. Reconfiguring the appliance
    1.  
      Shutting down the appliance
    2.  
      Performing a factory reset
    3.  
      Performing a reimage
    4.  
      Recovering storage data after a factory reset or a reimage
    5.  
      Performing a storage reset
    6.  
      Removing a node
    7.  
      Viewing or resetting the storage shelf order on a Veritas 52xx Appliance
  10. Troubleshooting guidelines
    1.  
      General troubleshooting steps
    2.  
      Generating a One-Time Password and unlocking access in lockdown mode
    3.  
      Gathering logs

Warnings and considerations for instance rollbacks

If you need to roll back an instance upgrade, review the following information before you begin.

  • Instances with MSDP storage do not support rollback. If you experience an upgrade failure that you cannot resolve, contact Veritas Technical Support for assistance.

  • Rollback of other instances should only be attempted as a last resort if there were serious problems with the upgrade.

  • A rollback restores the instance to a pre-upgrade checkpoint and reverses all operations that were performed after the upgrade, including backup data. For this reason, backup operations should be kept at a minimum for testing purposes only while the instance upgrade is in a pending state. Do not perform production operations until you commit or roll back the upgrade.

  • You cannot resize the instance storage until you commit or roll back the upgrade.

  • If you upgrade and roll back an application instance that has a lot of configured storage, the rollback can take a long time to complete. For example, an instance with 1 Petabyte of storage can take a little over an hour to roll back.

  • If a rollback is performed, there is a risk of data loss and data leakage for all operations that are performed after the upgrade. The longer the system was up and running before a rollback, the greater the chance of data loss and leakage. The data loss is not limited to losing backup data for the jobs that ran before the rollback. Future backups can be affected as well.

    The following inconsistencies can occur if you decide to roll back:

    • Incremental or transaction log-based database backups:

      If transaction logs were truncated after the upgrade and before the rollback, the database may not be protected.

      To resolve this issue, perform a full database backup after the rollback.

    • Incremental Windows file system backups:

      If the archive bit is used for incremental backup, it is reset upon completion of an incremental backup. If a rollback occurs, the incremental backup is lost, and subsequent incremental backups do not detect that these files changed. The files are not backed up again until a full backup is performed.

      To resolve this issue, perform a full backup after the rollback. If any files were modified in the lost incremental and then deleted before the next full backup, those files are lost.

    • Backup expiration catalog and storage inconsistency:

      If backup images expire and cleanup begins after the upgrade and before the rollback, backup data may be removed from storage units external to the instance. For example, this behavior can happen with an MSDP media server, cloud storage, OST storage, or tape storage. When a rollback of the primary server catalog occurs, the catalog indicates that there is a valid backup even though the data was removed from storage. This inconsistency results in backup data that cannot be restored, duplicated, or replicated. It may also affect scheduling of subsequent backups (delaying backups or performing incrementals instead of fulls).

    • Orphaned backups on storage:

      If backup images are created on external storage after the upgrade and before the rollback of the primary server, the backup images exist on storage but not in the NetBackup catalog. This discrepancy results in situations where the backups are never removed from storage (data leakage).

      To resolve this issue, import the images from storage or use the consistency check tools.

    • Backup considerations if the instance is a media server:

      • The backups between the upgrade and rollback are not restorable even though NetBackup has them in the catalog.

      • Unfinished SLP jobs fail, causing inconsistencies between the NetBackup primary server and the storage.

        If any backups were deleted after the upgrade and before the rollback, those backups come back as storage leak.