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

Assigning Fibre Channel ports to an instance

To perform backups over Fibre Channel, you must assign ports to your application instances.

This release supports the following types of backups over Fibre Channel:

  • VMware SAN transport (initiator)

  • Tape out (initiator)

  • SAN client (Fibre Transport target) - supported on NetBackup 9.1.0.1 and later instances

Use the following procedure to assign one or more Fibre Channel ports to an application instance.

To assign Fibre Channel ports to an instance

  1. From the System topology page of the Flex Appliance Console, navigate to the Application instances section.
  2. Locate the instance that you want to assign ports to. If it is running, select it and click Stop. You can also wait to stop the instance until the Flex Appliance Console prompts you to if you prefer.
  3. Click on the instance name to open the instance details page, then navigate to the Fibre Channel tab.
  4. Click Assign ports and follow the prompts to assign available ports. If you assign a port as an initiator that was previously used as a target, you are prompted to rescan the port before you can continue.

    Note:

    Depending on the use case you select for the port, only the devices of that storage type are visible to the instance. If you want all devices to be visible to the instance, select all available options from the Used for drop-down menu.

Port sharing and multipathing support

Note the following information:

  • You can assign an initiator port to multiple instances if the instances belong to the same tenant. You cannot assign a target port to multiple instances.

  • You can use the same port for both VMware and Tape out backups.

  • You can assign multiple ports to the same application instance or instances as long as they meet the following guidelines:

    • Used for VMware SAN transport:

      Multiple ports can be assigned to a single or to multiple application instances in any combination.

    • Used for Tape out or for both Tape out and VMware SAN transport:

      Multiple ports can be assigned to a single or to multiple application instances. However, the ports that are connected to the same tape devices must also be connected to the same application instances. The same tape devices cannot be assigned to different instances using different ports.

    • Used for SAN client:

      Multiple ports can be assigned to a single or to multiple application instances in any combination. Once you have assigned the ports, you cannot assign them to additional application instances or use them for another use case unless you unassign the existing instances.

  • A Fibre Transport (FT) target port can handle data streams from multiple SAN client initiator ports concurrently. However, if you want it to handle streams from more than two SAN client initiator ports, consider changing the following NetBackup primary server setting:

    nbftconfig -setconfig -ncp4

    Caution:

    This setting applies to all FT target ports on all media servers in your NetBackup domain. This setting should only be increased from the default (2) when all of the following conditions exist:

    All FT target ports on all media servers are at least eight gBit/s link speeds.

    The mix of jobs is such that all of the media servers have unused FT pipes.

    A large number of jobs from other SAN clients are waiting for resources.

    The back-end storage units have a lot of unused throughput capacity.

    If you increase the -ncp setting too high, the load balancing between multiple FT media servers could become highly imbalanced.