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

Gathering logs

Logs provide support personnel detailed information about your appliance. You can share these logs with the Veritas Support team to resolve issues.

The following log packages are available on a Flex appliance:

  • Appliance OS

    This log package includes the Flex Appliance software, high availability, and OS static logs.

  • Data Collect

    This log package includes debugging information for the system. It provides a more complete view of the overall system status, which is helpful for technical support representatives.

    As part of a Data Collect package, you can also choose to include the following:

    • Application instance logs

    • Advanced logs

      These logs are helpful for storage and hardware failures.

  • Performance

    This log package includes performance and configuration data from the appliance and the application instances.

To generate and download an Appliance OS or Data Collect log package

  1. From the Flex Appliance Console, click the question mark icon in the upper-right corner of the page, then select Diagnostics.
  2. Click Generate log package.
  3. Select the node or nodes that you want to view logs for and the log type, then click Generate. Note that the Data Collect logs may take a long time to generate. When the operation is done, the generated log package appears in a table on the Diagnostics page.

    Note:

    The logs that are generated from the Flex Appliance Console mask user information such as hostnames, IP addresses, usernames, etc. The masking process may take some time to complete. It is not currently possible to disable the masking option from the console. If you need to view the user information or want to speed up the log collection, generate the logs from the Flex Appliance Shell with the following commands:

    support data-collect advanced mask=off

    support data-collect advanced-and-appdata mask=off

    support data-collect appliance-os mask=off

  4. To download the log package, select it in the table and click Download. A pop-up window appears that lets you limit the download bandwidth. Select this option if needed, then click Download to confirm.

To generate and download a Performance log package

  1. Log in to the Flex Appliance Shell and run one of the following commands:

    • To generate the log package immediately:

      support data-collect performance at=now

    • To generate the log package later:

      support data-collect performance at=<yyyy-MM-dd-HH:mm>

      Where <yyyy-MM-dd-HH:mm> is the year, month, day, hour, and minute when you want to generate the log package.

      For example, to collect the logs on August 3, 2023 at 6:30 P.M., run the following command:

      support data-collect performance at=2023-08-03-18:30

    Note:

    You can only run or schedule one log generation at a time. To check if any log generations are already scheduled, use the support data-collect list-job command.

  2. Depending on your environment, the logs take approximately one hour to generate. When they are ready, they appear in the table on the Diagnostics page of the Flex Appliance Console. To access this page from the console, click the question mark in the upper-right corner and select Diagnostics.
  3. To download the log package, select it in the table and click Download. A pop-up window appears that lets you limit the download bandwidth. Select this option if needed, then click Download to confirm.

To delete a log package

  1. From the Flex Appliance Console, click the question mark icon in the upper-right corner of the page, then select Diagnostics.
  2. Select the log package that you want to delete and click Delete. When the confirmation window appears, click Delete to confirm.